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
- Snow petrelDeep Cut85points
- Snowy egretDeep Cut85points
- Snowy ploverDeep Cut85points
- Snowy SheathbillDeep Cut85points
- Snowy-crowned TernDeep Cut85points
- Socotra cormorantDeep Cut85points
- Soft-plumaged petrelDeep Cut85points
- Solitary sandpiperDeep Cut85points
- Solitary SnipeDeep Cut85points
- Sooty AlbatrossDeep Cut85points
- Sooty gullDeep Cut85points
- Sooty oystercatcherDeep Cut85points
- Sooty shearwaterDeep Cut85points
- Sooty ternDeep Cut85points
- SoraDeep Cut85points
- South African ShelduckDeep Cut85points
- South American Painted-snipeDeep Cut85points
- South American ternDeep Cut85points
- South Georgia Diving PetrelDeep Cut85points
- South Georgia PipitDeep Cut85points
- South Georgia ShagDeep Cut85points
- South Island oystercatcherDeep Cut85points
- South polar skuaDeep Cut85points
- Southern FulmarDeep Cut85points
- Southern giant petrelDeep Cut85points
- Southern LapwingDeep Cut85points
- Southern pochardDeep Cut85points
- Southern red bishopDeep Cut85points
- Southern Rough-winged SwallowDeep Cut85points
- Southern Royal AlbatrossDeep Cut85points
- Southern screamerDeep Cut85points
- Southern Silvery KingfisherDeep Cut85points
- Speckled RailDeep Cut85points
- Speckled Reed WarblerDeep Cut85points
- Spectacled eiderDeep Cut85points
- Spectacled GuillemotDeep Cut85points
- Spectacled PetrelDeep Cut85points
- Spectacled TernDeep Cut85points
- Spectacled TyrantDeep Cut85points
- Spoon-billed sandpiperDeep Cut85points
- Spot-billed pelicanDeep Cut85points
- Spot-breasted IbisDeep Cut85points
- Spot-breasted LapwingDeep Cut85points
- Spot-flanked GallinuleDeep Cut85points
- Spotless crakeDeep Cut85points
- Spotted crakeDeep Cut85points
- Spotted forktailDeep Cut85points
- Spotted RailDeep Cut85points
- Spotted redshankDeep Cut85points
- Spotted sandpiperDeep 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.