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
- Lesser sand ploverDeep Cut85points
- Lesser scaupDeep Cut85points
- Lesser swamp warblerDeep Cut85points
- Lesser whistling duckDeep Cut85points
- Lesser white-fronted gooseDeep Cut85points
- Lesser yellowlegsDeep Cut85points
- Levaillant's CisticolaDeep Cut85points
- Lewin's railDeep Cut85points
- Light-mantled albatrossDeep Cut85points
- LimpkinDeep Cut85points
- Lincoln's SparrowDeep Cut85points
- Lingxian gooseDeep Cut85points
- Little aukDeep Cut85points
- Little bitternDeep Cut85points
- Little black cormorantDeep Cut85points
- Little blue heronDeep Cut85points
- Little cormorantDeep Cut85points
- Little crakeDeep Cut85points
- Little CurlewDeep Cut85points
- Little egretDeep Cut85points
- Little forktailDeep Cut85points
- Little grassbirdDeep Cut85points
- Little grebeDeep Cut85points
- Little gullDeep Cut85points
- Little kingfisherDeep Cut85points
- Little penguinDeep Cut85points
- Little pied cormorantDeep Cut85points
- Little ringed ploverDeep Cut85points
- Little rush warblerDeep Cut85points
- Little ShearwaterDeep Cut85points
- Little stintDeep Cut85points
- Little ternDeep Cut85points
- Little White TernDeep Cut85points
- Little Wood RailDeep Cut85points
- Long-billed curlewDeep Cut85points
- Long-billed dowitcherDeep Cut85points
- Long-billed murreletDeep Cut85points
- Long-billed PloverDeep Cut85points
- Long-tailed duckDeep Cut85points
- Long-tailed Reed FinchDeep Cut85points
- Long-toed lapwingDeep Cut85points
- Long-toed stintDeep Cut85points
- Louisiana waterthrushDeep Cut85points
- Luapula CisticolaDeep Cut85points
- Luzon Water RedstartDeep Cut85points
- Maccoa duckDeep Cut85points
- MacGillivray's PrionDeep Cut85points
- Macquarie ShagDeep Cut85points
- Madagascar fish eagleDeep Cut85points
- Madagascar FlufftailDeep 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.