Trap birds
Almost nothing in the core set is a bad card. Traps are good cards played on the wrong turn, or cards written for a table of five and read at a table of two. So this page is organised by shape: learn the pattern, spot the next one.
Pattern 1: the power that rolls dice
Section titled “Pattern 1: the power that rolls dice”Dice predators read “roll all dice not in the birdfeeder; if any show rodent or fish, cache one.” A named face is 1 in 6 per die, and the feeder refills the moment it empties, so you rarely roll more than four.
| Dice outside the feeder | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chance of a hit | 16.7% | 30.6% | 42.1% | 51.8% |
Call it 30-50% in practice, never better than about 52%: half a food and half a point per activation, worse than nearly every non-predator brown power.
| Tier | Bird | Why |
|---|---|---|
| B | Barn Owl · Burrowing Owl · Common Merganser · American Kestrel | 5 VP with 3-4 eggs for 2 food is a fine card. Buy the print, treat the cache as a tip |
| D | The same birds as your engine | A plan that works half the time isn’t a plan |
Wingspan-check hunters are a different card: they tuck a card from the deck if it’s under a printed size, hitting 57.1% under 50 cm, 70.0% under 75 cm and 78.2% under 100 cm: 0.7-0.8 points an activation plus deck thinning. Red-Tailed Hawk and Peregrine Falcon are the efficient ones. Collecting for Falconer? Collect these.
Pattern 2: the pink that needs his cooperation
Section titled “Pattern 2: the pink that needs his cooperation”A pink fires at most once between your turns, and at two players exactly one opponent turn fills that window. These four then ask him to do something he probably won’t.
| Tier | Bird | Why |
|---|---|---|
| F | Turkey Vulture (1/1/0) · Black Vulture (2/1/0) | Needs his predator to succeed. He may run none, and if he does they miss half the time |
| F | Black-Billed Magpie (3/3/2) | Same trigger, twice the price |
| F | Loggerhead Shrike (3/4/2) | Needs him to gain food and take rodents, 17% of the die faces |
At two players these are no-power birds worth 1-3 points.
Pattern 3: the point bomb on the wrong turn
Section titled “Pattern 3: the point bomb on the wrong turn”The deck averages 4.02 VP, so “big” starts around 7, and a big bird costs 3 food and buys nothing else. The trap is the round, not the card: in round 1 that same turn buys a cheap brown bird that fires seven to nine more times.
| Bird | Early | Late | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| American Woodcock · Trumpeter Swan (9 VP) | D | A | Nine points that never compound, for one of your 26 turns |
| Prothonotary Warbler · Wild Turkey (8 VP) | D | A | 4-5 egg slots each, which makes them the best late buys |
| Blue-Winged · Hooded Warbler (2 food) | B | A | The exception: ten combined for two food beats the rate in any round |
| Killdeer · Mourning Dove (1 food) | S | F | The mirror mistake. A 1-VP engine bird played last turn scores 1 |
Columns 4 and 5 cost 2 eggs, so a late bird nets its face minus 2. Against a grassland laying 4, a 7-point bird earns the turn and a 5-point bird doesn’t.
Pattern 4: rare food as a plan
Section titled “Pattern 4: rare food as a plan”Golden Eagle and Great Horned Owl (3 rodents), Atlantic Puffin (3 fish), Bald Eagle (2 fish + 1 rodent). The printed 8-9 points are real, but rodent and fish are each 17% of the die faces, while 83 of the 170 birds are payable with invertebrates, seeds and wilds alone. Three forest turns of gathering costs more than the bird is worth: play them when the food is already there, never as a goal.
Pattern 5: the bird that promises to move
Section titled “Pattern 5: the bird that promises to move”Eight birds offer to move themselves to another habitat: Song Sparrow, White-Crowned Sparrow, Chimney Swift, Common Nighthawk, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Bewick’s Wren, Blue Grosbeak, Yellow-Breasted Chat. It only works when the bird is rightmost in its row, and it costs the slot you paid eggs for. Judge all eight on VP plus capacity.
Also in the drawer
Section titled “Also in the drawer”Indigo Bunting (5 VP, 3 food) and Brown Pelican (4 VP, 2 fish) both price above what their powers deliver. And the “all players gain” birds, Osprey, Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher, Eastern Phoebe, Red Crossbill and Baltimore Oriole, mirror exactly at two players: play the printed VP, then decline to activate in round 4.
Every trap here is a timing error or a player-count error. Ask what round it is, and how many opponents the card was written for. Both answers are on the table.
Next: Bonus card tiers, which has traps of its own.