Game birds: the history of AFL bird emblems

Game birds: the history of AFL bird emblems

Of the 18 Australian Football League (AFL) teams, five are represented by birds. But why? Ahead of the 2026 AFL Grand Final, John Peter investigates the surprising origins of Australia’s bird-themed footy mascots.

This story is adapted from an article that appeared in the Spring 2026 issue of Australian Birdlife magazine. For more great reads, become a BirdLife Australia member and receive our quarterly, award-winning magazine in your mailbox. 

Collingwood

The seeds of Collingwood’s origins were sown in the 19th century by another team, called Britannia, which played at Victoria Park. There was, however, a groundswell for Collingwood to have its own team, so Britannia disbanded and morphed into the Collingwood Football Club, entering the VFA in 1892. Britannia’s patriotic colours (red, white and blue) were already worn by Footscray, so Collingwood needed to find a different guernsey that didn’t clash with another team’s.  

This quandary was quickly settled when a supporter at Collingwood’s inaugural meeting enthused about the uniform worn by the South Australians at an intercolonial carnival: black-and-white vertical stripes, which represented the plumage of the South Australian avifaunal emblem – the ‘Piping Shrike’. Collingwood immediately appropriated the design, and it’s remained essentially unchanged ever since.  

These black-and-white uniforms made the choice of the magpie as the club’s emblem an obvious one, and Collingwood has been known as the Magpies since its very first game. It’s Australia’s oldest footy bird mascot.

Sydney Swans

Many Sydney supporters have no idea that their team has its origins as one of the League’s foundation teams – South Melbourne, which played at the Lakeside Oval. Due to their white guernsey emblazoned with a scarlet sash, South were originally known as the “Blood-stained Angels’, which was soon abbreviated to ‘the Bloods’. 

However, in the early 1930s, their monicker was changed to ‘the Swans’. It’s tempting to think that, because their home ground was beside Albert Park Lake (where many swans swim), they were named after the local waterfowl – but not so! 

Instead, in the early 1930s, South embarked on an ambitious recruiting drive, signing the best players from around Australia. Having assembled their ‘foreign legion’, an article in the Sporting Globe in 1932 said (perhaps a little sarcastically) that South’s team boasted so many Western Australians they should be known as the Swans, in reference to the state emblem of The West – and the idea stuck! The official emblem is the introduced white Mute Swan, however, rather than the native Black Swan. 

The following year, their first season as the Swans, South won the premiership (but another flag was to elude them for the next 73 years!) 

At the end of the 1981 season, South was relocated to Sydney, and rumours soon circulated that they would change their name to the Sydney Sharks, but that was not to be – and up-market poultry remains as the club’s mascot. 

Hawthorn 

When Hawthorn was admitted into the VFL in 1925, they were known as the ‘Mayblooms’ – a synonym for the hawthorn bush. Many opposition supporters thought this was apt, as Hawthorn, being perennial cellar-dwellers, bloomed early in the season, but had always faded away by September, when finals are played. 

In 1943, Hawthorn’s coach, the legendary Roy Cazaly, ditched the club’s effeminate floral emblem, replacing it with the alliterative ‘Hawks’ as the team’s mascot instead. 

Not only is a hawk a predator – thus giving off an intimidating impression – but the predominantly brown uniform Hawthorn wore in those days was seen as similar to the plumage of what was then called the ‘Brown Hawk’ – known today as the Brown Falcon. 

And although the name change didn’t bring immediate success, it came eventually: Hawthorn didn’t play in a single final when they were the Mayblooms; as the Hawks, they’ve won 13 premierships! 

West Coast Eagles

In 1987, the West Coast Eagles were part of the first tranche of ‘interstate’ expansion teams admitted into the VFL – the first new teams since 1925!  

Being based in Perth, the Western Australian emblem of a Black Swan seemed the most appropriate mascot, but it had already been appropriated by Sydney (via South Melbourne) more than half a century before. Something different was needed, so, instead, they chose the Wedge-tailed Eagle as their emblem, eagles being a symbol of power and strength since Roman times.  

And with the image of an eagle emblazoned on their guernseys, they soon overpowered opposition teams to win their first premiership in just their sixth season.  

Adelaide Crows

When a team from South Australia finally joined the AFL in 1991, Adelaide’s administrators were in a quandary about what to call their fledgling club. After all, the state’s avifaunal emblem, the magpie, had already been used by Collingwood for a century. Anyway, in South Australian football, the magpie is synonymous with Port Adelaide, which had made an abortive attempt to join the VFL the previous year. They needed another iconic South Australian name. 

Alternatives, including the Rams, Sharks, Falcons and Giants, were all considered and rejected. Instead, they settled on the Adelaide Crows. But why crows? 

South Australians have been referred to as ‘Croweaters’ by other Australians since the mid-19th century. The general belief in other colonies was that South Australia was essentially devoid of natural resources – gold, timber, arable land and the like – rendering its inhabitants so poverty stricken that they were forced to eat unpalatable wildlife, such as crows, to survive. 

Although the ‘croweater’ epithet was a derogatory one, Adelaide’s supporters have adopted the crow as their mascot with genuine parochial pride.