Birds of a Feather

In Birds of a Feather the players represent bird-watchers who are competing – not a very bird-watchery thing, but anyway – to see the most birds. Admittedly it doesn’t sound that exciting as a premise, but there is some rather canny play involved…

Each player starts with a set of bird cards and a card on which to record their bird-watching progress. The cards are made up of not only a variety of birds, but also a variety of geographic locations: wetlands, forests, and so on, that have different coloured backgrounds. On a given turn everyone selects the bird they are going to ‘watch’ and simultaneously, all the cards are revealed. You then record what you can see: not only the bird you’ve just played, but any other birds (played by the other players) who appear in the same location; thus, it’s possible to spot several birds at the same time.

Cards from the previous round stay face-up, and the next cards are played and revealed. Now it’s possible to spot not only cards played this round, but the previous round as well – assuming they match your location of course. And play continues like this until all cards are played whereupon players compare their scores: rarer birds are worth more points when spotted, whereas bird eggs aren’t worth any points at all – they don’t tend to move about much.

But mixed into this luck and second-guesswork are the raptors. These predatory birds cause mayhem, scaring off any birds from the same environment who have arrived at the same time. So the fleeing birds don’t get spotted by anybody – not even the person who played the raptor card.