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
- Greater scaupDeep Cut85points
- Greater spotted eagleDeep Cut85points
- Greater swamp warblerDeep Cut85points
- Greater white-fronted gooseDeep Cut85points
- Greater yellowlegsDeep Cut85points
- Green ibisDeep Cut85points
- Green kingfisherDeep Cut85points
- Green pygmy gooseDeep Cut85points
- Green sandpiperDeep Cut85points
- Green-and-rufous kingfisherDeep Cut85points
- Green-winged tealDeep Cut85points
- GreenshankDeep Cut85points
- Grey crowned craneDeep Cut85points
- Grey gullDeep Cut85points
- Grey NoddyDeep Cut85points
- Grey PetrelDeep Cut85points
- Grey ploverDeep Cut85points
- Grey PratincoleDeep Cut85points
- Grey tealDeep Cut85points
- Grey wagtailDeep Cut85points
- Grey-backed Storm PetrelDeep Cut85points
- Grey-breasted CrakeDeep Cut85points
- Grey-cowled wood railDeep Cut85points
- Grey-faced petrelDeep Cut85points
- Grey-headed AlbatrossDeep Cut85points
- Grey-headed fish eagleDeep Cut85points
- Grey-headed gullDeep Cut85points
- Grey-headed lapwingDeep Cut85points
- Grey-headed swamphenDeep Cut85points
- Grey-tailed tattlerDeep Cut85points
- Grey-throated MartinDeep Cut85points
- Grey-throated RailDeep Cut85points
- Greylag gooseDeep Cut85points
- Grimwood's LongclawDeep Cut85points
- Guadalupe MurreletDeep Cut85points
- Guanay cormorantDeep Cut85points
- Gull-billed ternDeep Cut85points
- Hadada ibisDeep Cut85points
- Half-collared kingfisherDeep Cut85points
- HamerkopDeep Cut85points
- HardheadDeep Cut85points
- Harlequin duckDeep Cut85points
- Hartlaub's DuckDeep Cut85points
- Hartlaub's gullDeep Cut85points
- Havana duckDeep Cut85points
- Hawaiian CootDeep Cut85points
- Hawaiian DuckDeep Cut85points
- Hawaiian PetrelDeep Cut85points
- Heard Island ShagDeep Cut85points
- Heermann's gullDeep 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.