Krillion Recorded answers
1,466 recorded answers
How to approach it
Work outward from water types rather than from memory of a bird list. Take each kind of water in turn — open ocean, estuary, slow river, highland lake, marsh, flooded field, rocky shore — and ask which birds you can actually name that depend on it. Write down every candidate, even the ones you think are too obscure, because breadth is what this puzzle rewards. Then check each name for a real species behind it: a stable common name, a described range, a documented link to water. Drop anything that is only a family label or a bird you half-remember. Before submitting, keep the strangest plausible name and discard the generic one; the scoring favours precision over familiarity.
Get a hint
Start from the habitat instead of the family tree: fresh water, salt water, marsh, shoreline and riverbank each host their own set of birds, and any of them is a legitimate entry.
A little more
Within that habitat, sort candidates by how they use it — diving for fish, wading in shallows, nesting in reeds, probing mud, or simply roosting on rocks and posts at the water's edge.
One step further
Aim for a precise species name rather than a broad label, and lean toward something specialised, a bird whose whole life is spent on one kind of water body, over the first one that comes to mind.
Reveal answers 1,466
- SungrebeOne in a Krillion100points
- Abbott's BoobyDeep Cut85points
- Abdim's storkDeep Cut85points
- African black duckDeep Cut85points
- African crakeDeep Cut85points
- African darterDeep Cut85points
- African finfootDeep Cut85points
- African fish eagleDeep Cut85points
- African gooseDeep Cut85points
- African Grass OwlDeep Cut85points
- African jacanaDeep Cut85points
- African marsh harrierDeep Cut85points
- African openbillDeep Cut85points
- African oystercatcherDeep Cut85points
- African penguinDeep Cut85points
- African pied wagtailDeep Cut85points
- African pygmy gooseDeep Cut85points
- African railDeep Cut85points
- African River MartinDeep Cut85points
- African skimmerDeep Cut85points
- African SnipeDeep Cut85points
- African spoonbillDeep Cut85points
- African swamphenDeep Cut85points
- African wattled lapwingDeep Cut85points
- African Yellow WarblerDeep Cut85points
- Agami heronDeep Cut85points
- Ainley's Storm PetrelDeep Cut85points
- Alder flycatcherDeep Cut85points
- Aleutian ternDeep Cut85points
- Allen's gallinuleDeep Cut85points
- Altamira YellowthroatDeep Cut85points
- Amazon kingfisherDeep Cut85points
- American avocetDeep Cut85points
- American bitternDeep Cut85points
- American dipperDeep Cut85points
- American golden ploverDeep Cut85points
- American herring gullDeep Cut85points
- American oystercatcherDeep Cut85points
- American pygmy kingfisherDeep Cut85points
- American white pelicanDeep Cut85points
- American wigeonDeep Cut85points
- American woodcockDeep Cut85points
- Amsterdam AlbatrossDeep Cut85points
- Ancient murreletDeep Cut85points
- Andaman CrakeDeep Cut85points
- Andaman TealDeep Cut85points
- Andean AvocetDeep Cut85points
- Andean cootDeep Cut85points
- Andean duckDeep Cut85points
- Andean flamingoDeep Cut85points
Why these answers count
The top tier here is enormous, which tells you the reveal accepted almost anything with a genuine aquatic connection: 1451 of the 1466 recorded answers reached at least 60 points, and 1376 of them sat at 85. What separated the very top was not correctness but rarity. Only one entry, Sungrebe, reached 100 points, and it is the kind of answer most players never think of — a rare pick rather than a familiar shoreline bird. The 85-point band is packed with precise, well-documented species from every continent and every water type, from Abbott's Booby and Abdim's stork to African darter, African finfoot and African fish eagle: correct, specific, but shared by enough players to be capped below the maximum. The 74 answers at 60 points were still accepted, presumably broader or more commonly offered names. The lesson: specificity earns the base score, obscurity earns the premium.