The short version: spot 50 wild bird species anywhere in Greater Brisbane, log each one, and your name climbs the leaderboard. The long version is below.
Because the challenge carries real physical risk — see Rule #1 above — everyone must complete a one-time registration before logging their first sighting. Simply typing a name into the sighting form is no longer enough. Registering asks for your display name, full legal name, date of birth, residential address, phone number, and email, and asks you to confirm — with a clear checkbox, not a buried assumption — that you've read and understood these Rules & Regulations in full, including Safety First.
If you're under 18, a parent or guardian must also tick a consent box during registration confirming they approve of you taking part. Once registered, you take part by typing your exact display name on Log a Sighting each time — the same simple, no-password approach the site has always used, now behind a proper sign-up first.
Assumption of risk: the Brisbane Air 50 takes place outdoors, in natural environments, where hazards exist — uneven terrain, weather, water, and wildlife, with further hazards specific to future challenge variants as they launch. By registering, you acknowledge these risks and take part at your own risk.
Limitation of liability: to the fullest extent permitted by law, neither Curiosity by Georgie nor its organisers accept any liability for injury, loss, or damage arising from foreseeable accidents connected with participation. This does not exclude any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded — for example, liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, where the law does not allow that to be excluded.
Removal from the challenge: a participant who causes abuse or harm to another participant, or to wildlife or nature, may be permanently banned — their registration is suspended and they can no longer log sightings under that name, on this site or via its public API.
This wording is a starting point, not legal advice — it should be reviewed by an Australian solicitor before launch, particularly the liability limitation, the collection of participants' personal information (including from minors), and how all of it sits alongside the Civil Liability Act, Australian Consumer Law, and the Privacy Act.
Spot and log 50 different wild bird species within Greater Brisbane. There's no entry deadline and no time limit — it's an ongoing, go-at-your-own-pace challenge you can pick up any week of the year.
Anyone — backyard birders, families out for a walk, seasoned twitchers with a scope. There's no sign-up fee and no equipment requirement, though a pair of binoculars and a field guide certainly help.
"Greater Brisbane" covers the Brisbane City Council area plus the surrounding region — Moreton Bay, Redlands, Logan, Ipswich, and out to the D'Aguilar Range. A sighting anywhere inside that boundary counts.
Submit each sighting through Log a Sighting with your name (or a consistent nickname — the leaderboard needs to recognise you across visits), the species, the date, roughly where you saw it, and a clear photo as evidence. From official launch, a photo is required, not optional.
Every submission starts as pending — it won't appear on the Leaderboard or count toward your tally until it's been reviewed and confirmed, either by an automated check (most sightings, within moments) or by Georgie personally. Manual reviews can take up to 48 hours, so a pending sighting isn't a sign anything's wrong — it just hasn't been looked at yet. You can check the status of your own sightings any time on My Sightings.
The Brisbane Air 50 only counts sightings from its official launch date onward. Every submitted photo is checked against its original date and time stamp (EXIF metadata) — if that timestamp is from before launch, the sighting won't be confirmed, even if the photo is completely genuine.
This exists so nobody can complete the challenge on day one from an old photo collection — the challenge is about what you spot from launch onward, not what you've already got saved. Submissions that fail the authenticity or timestamp check are rejected with a reason and can be resubmitted with a valid photo.
The Leaderboard ranks everyone by accumulated Air Points from unique confirmed species, highest first. You're free to log birds outside the official 50 too — they still add to your overall tally — but only the official 50 earn Air Points or count toward the Hall of Fame. Confirm all 50 official Brisbane Air 50 species and you're eligible for the Hall of Fame — Georgie does one final manual check over your 50 confirmed sightings (no new submission needed, just a last look at the evidence photos already on file) before you go up permanently, even if you keep spotting birds past that point.
Finish all 50 inside the first fifty people to do it, and there's a physical memento too — see Finisher Rewards for the finisher's coin. Only fifty will ever exist, so it isn't guaranteed just by finishing.
The review step keeps the Leaderboard and Hall of Fame trustworthy, but the spirit of the challenge is still honour and encouragement, not policing. Log sightings you're genuinely confident about, and if you're unsure of an identification, it's fine to ask around before logging it. The point of the Brisbane Air 50 is getting more people outside and looking up, not winning at all costs.