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
- Marbled murreletDeep Cut85points
- Markham's Storm PetrelDeep Cut85points
- Marsh AntwrenDeep Cut85points
- Marsh BabblerDeep Cut85points
- Marsh GrassbirdDeep Cut85points
- Marsh harrierDeep Cut85points
- Marsh OwlDeep Cut85points
- Marsh sandpiperDeep Cut85points
- Marsh SeedeaterDeep Cut85points
- Marsh TapaculoDeep Cut85points
- Marsh TchagraDeep Cut85points
- Marsh warblerDeep Cut85points
- Marsh WidowbirdDeep Cut85points
- Marsh wrenDeep Cut85points
- Masatierra PetrelDeep Cut85points
- Mascarene PetrelDeep Cut85points
- Masked boobyDeep Cut85points
- Masked DuckDeep Cut85points
- Masked finfootDeep Cut85points
- Masked lapwingDeep Cut85points
- Masked water tyrantDeep Cut85points
- Matsudaira's Storm PetrelDeep Cut85points
- Mediterranean gullDeep Cut85points
- Mekong WagtailDeep Cut85points
- Meller's duckDeep Cut85points
- Mexican DuckDeep Cut85points
- Middendorff's Grasshopper WarblerDeep Cut85points
- Milky storkDeep Cut85points
- Mongolian GullDeep Cut85points
- Monteiro's storm petrelDeep Cut85points
- Mottled duckDeep Cut85points
- Mottled petrelDeep Cut85points
- Mountain wagtailDeep Cut85points
- Moustached warblerDeep Cut85points
- Murphy's PetrelDeep Cut85points
- MurreletDeep Cut85points
- Muscovy duckDeep Cut85points
- Musk duckDeep Cut85points
- Mute swanDeep Cut85points
- Nankeen night heronDeep Cut85points
- Nazca boobyDeep Cut85points
- Nelson's SparrowDeep Cut85points
- NeneDeep Cut85points
- Neotropic cormorantDeep Cut85points
- New Caledonian Storm PetrelDeep Cut85points
- New Guinea Flightless RailDeep Cut85points
- New Zealand dotterelDeep Cut85points
- New Zealand grebeDeep Cut85points
- New Zealand scaupDeep Cut85points
- New Zealand storm petrelDeep 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.