Music stars Adele, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift have been topping the Australian Recording Industry Association’s music charts. No surprise there. But now they’ve been joined by 53 of Australia’s most endangered bird species.

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       “Songs of Disappearance” — “a chorus of iconic cockatoos, the buzzing of bowerbirds, a bizarre symphony of seabirds, and the haunting call of one of the last remaining night parrots,” per the album’s website — debuted in Australia on Dec. 3.

       The compilation of rare squeaks and squawks quickly rose in the charts, surpassing such global stars as the Weeknd and Justin Bieber, and Christmas favorites like Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey. It’s the first of its kind to make it into the Australian Recording Industry Association’s top five albums — and its 54 tracks even briefly edged out Swift to make the top three.

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       “Songs of Disappearance” was produced by Charles Darwin University doctoral candidate Anthony Albrecht and is composed of sounds collected by David Stewart, a renowned wildlife sound recordist, among other collaborators.

       Stewart has spent half a century recording Australia’s rarely heard wildlife, sometimes waiting hours to catch one coveted sound bite.

       The album was released alongside a book, “The Action Plan for Australian Birds 2020,” produced by CDU and BirdLife Australia, the country’s largest bird conservation organization. The album’s profits benefit BirdLife Australia.

       “The results tell us clearly that without changes, many species will continue to decline or to be lost altogether,” CDU conservation professor Stephen Garnett said in a statement accompanying the book’s release.

       At least 216 birds are under threat in Australia, compared with 195 a decade ago, CDU and BirdLife Australia found. Seventy-seven of the species have been affected by the growing frequency of bush fires, with 26 at an even greater risk after Australia’s 2019 and 2020 fires, according to their report. Severe droughts and heat waves also have threatened the health and habitat of more than 90 bird species.

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       The study did find that intensive conservation efforts have helped to stem losses in some key bird populations, including the Kangaroo Island glossy black cockatoo and Eastern bristlebird.

       “Australia loving the sounds of our disappearing birds,” Sean Dooley, BirdLife Australia’s national public affairs manager, said in a tweet. Support the work, he added, “to ensure the follow up album isn’t The Sounds of Silence.”

       Read more:

       A billion animals have been caught in Australia’s fires. Some may go extinct.

       Ivory-billed woodpecker officially declared extinct, along with 22 other species

       The racist legacy many birds carry