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
- Scopoli's shearwaterDeep Cut85points
- ScoterDeep Cut85points
- ScreamerDeep Cut85points
- Scripps's MurreletDeep Cut85points
- Sea eagleDeep Cut85points
- Seaside cinclodesDeep Cut85points
- Seaside sparrowDeep Cut85points
- Sebastopol gooseDeep Cut85points
- Sedge warblerDeep Cut85points
- Sedge WrenDeep Cut85points
- Semipalmated ploverDeep Cut85points
- Semipalmated sandpiperDeep Cut85points
- Senegal Thick-kneeDeep Cut85points
- Shaoxing duckDeep Cut85points
- Sharp-tailed IbisDeep Cut85points
- Sharp-tailed sandpiperDeep Cut85points
- Sharp-tailed StreamcreeperDeep Cut85points
- SheathbillDeep Cut85points
- ShelduckDeep Cut85points
- Shetland gooseDeep Cut85points
- Shining-blue kingfisherDeep Cut85points
- Shore PloverDeep Cut85points
- Short-billed dowitcherDeep Cut85points
- Short-billed GullDeep Cut85points
- Short-tailed albatrossDeep Cut85points
- Short-tailed shearwaterDeep Cut85points
- ShovelerDeep Cut85points
- Shy AlbatrossDeep Cut85points
- Siberian craneDeep Cut85points
- Siberian sand ploverDeep Cut85points
- Silver Appleyard duckDeep Cut85points
- Silver gullDeep Cut85points
- Silver tealDeep Cut85points
- Silvery grebeDeep Cut85points
- SkimmerDeep Cut85points
- Slaty egretDeep Cut85points
- Slaty-backed forktailDeep Cut85points
- Slaty-backed gullDeep Cut85points
- Slaty-breasted RailDeep Cut85points
- Slaty-breasted Wood RailDeep Cut85points
- Slender-billed FlufftailDeep Cut85points
- Slender-billed gullDeep Cut85points
- Slender-billed KiteDeep Cut85points
- Slender-billed PrionDeep Cut85points
- Small PratincoleDeep Cut85points
- SmewDeep Cut85points
- Snail kiteDeep Cut85points
- Snares penguinDeep Cut85points
- SnipeDeep Cut85points
- Snoring RailDeep 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.