Krillion Recorded answers
1,467 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 1,467
- Fork-tailed Storm PetrelDeep Cut85points
- Forster's ternDeep Cut85points
- Franklin's gullDeep Cut85points
- Freckled duckDeep Cut85points
- Fuegian SnipeDeep Cut85points
- FulmarDeep Cut85points
- Fulmar PrionDeep Cut85points
- Fulvous whistling duckDeep Cut85points
- GadwallDeep Cut85points
- Galapagos PetrelDeep Cut85points
- Galapagos ShearwaterDeep Cut85points
- GallinuleDeep Cut85points
- GarganeyDeep Cut85points
- Giant cootDeep Cut85points
- Giant IbisDeep Cut85points
- Giant kingfisherDeep Cut85points
- Giant petrelDeep Cut85points
- Giant SnipeDeep Cut85points
- Giant wood railDeep Cut85points
- Glaucous gullDeep Cut85points
- Glaucous-winged gullDeep Cut85points
- Glossy ibisDeep Cut85points
- GodwitDeep Cut85points
- Golden ploverDeep Cut85points
- GoldeneyeDeep Cut85points
- Goliath heronDeep Cut85points
- Gough MoorhenDeep Cut85points
- Gould's PetrelDeep Cut85points
- Grauer's Swamp WarblerDeep Cut85points
- Great Black HawkDeep Cut85points
- Great black-backed gullDeep Cut85points
- Great cormorantDeep Cut85points
- Great crested grebeDeep Cut85points
- Great frigatebirdDeep Cut85points
- Great grebeDeep Cut85points
- Great knotDeep Cut85points
- Great reed warblerDeep Cut85points
- Great shearwaterDeep Cut85points
- Great skuaDeep Cut85points
- Great snipeDeep Cut85points
- Great Stone-curlewDeep Cut85points
- Great white pelicanDeep Cut85points
- Great-billed HeronDeep Cut85points
- Great-billed KingfisherDeep Cut85points
- Great-winged PetrelDeep Cut85points
- Greater adjutantDeep Cut85points
- Greater crested ternDeep Cut85points
- Greater flamingoDeep Cut85points
- Greater Painted-snipeDeep Cut85points
- Greater sand ploverDeep 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.