Each year, Audubon California asks the public to help us name our Bird of the Year.  We created this fun project in 2009 to raise awareness about bird conservation in California. Typically, we name six finalists and post the poll online. Voters are free to choose one of these birds or write in the bird of their choice. This is a conservation award -- we're particularly interested in recognizing bird species that were of significant conservation interest in the previous year, but that also had a compelling story and rallied the public around it.