Fifty birds. Eighteen days. Only one winner.

Bird of the year is back. In partnership with BirdLife Australia, the Guardian is running a poll to determine which of our feathered friends is considered No 1 in the eyes of the Australian public.

Will it be a repeat of 2017, when the magpie pipped the ibis for the top spot? Or will a concerted campaign, and some well-timed publicity, give the sulphur-crested cockatoo enough momentum to take the crown?

While this sounds like a popularity contest (it is), there is a greater goal.

“This is to draw attention to the birds we all love,” Samantha Vine, head of conservation at BirdLife Australia, says. “Everyone has a bird story. Everyone, perhaps without even noticing it, will have birds in their life.

“They’re one of the most beautiful, colourful, sometimes cheeky, parts of nature we interact with.”

The Guardian and BirdLife Australia have spent weeks refining the list of 50 birds.

It includes common species such as the galah and rainbow lorikeet, as well birds that have a tougher plight, such as the western ground parrot, the eastern curlew, the black-throated finch and the Carnaby’s black cockatoo, all of which are listed as threatened under Australian environment laws.

The poll will be conducted in two stages. Voting commences today with the group of 50 birds.

On 8 November, a top 10 will be announced and a second round of voting will begin to select the winner. Australia’s No 1 bird will be revealed on 15 November.

Mighty duck: can the Pacific Black overcome the odds to make it to the final 10? Photograph: Birdlife Australia

As in 2017, if you feel a particular bird has been ignored, there is an option to write in and add it yourself. For example, certain sections of the community will unhappily discover today that there is no duck on the list.

But if enough voters launch a write-in campaign, a species not on the list of 50 could still make the top 10.

Vine says she often looks for birds that are “underdogs” before casting her vote. But she also has a soft spot for the magpie after rescuing one – and releasing it once it was healthy again – many years ago.

The poll is also a chance to draw attention to some of the big challenges Australian birds are facing, such as habitat loss and climate change.

“One of the reasons it’s important to take time to recognise how much people around Australia really love birds is because we’re losing them,” Vine says. “It’s probably no surprise that the biggest threat to birds is the loss of habitat.

“Clearing habitat, whether it be for agriculture or mines or for housing developments removes the very habitat they need to survive and raise the next generation.”

A Senate inquiry is now looking at the high rate of extinction across all Australian fauna species.

More than 1,800 Australian plants and animals are at risk of extinction. Vine says that birds, as one of the best-monitored vertebrates, are a marker for this crisis.

“Lots of people are out there looking at birds all the time and we’ve got one of the biggest datasets in nature,” she says. “And that really tells us the trend is quite alarming, not just for threatened birds but also common birds.”