Birdle

Birdle shows you photographs of a single bird species - often several images, plus a range map - and gives you six guesses to name it. Every guess is scored against scientific taxonomy rather than spelling: the board tells you whether your bird shares the target's order, family or genus. Photos and range data are credited to eBird and the Macaulay Library, and a globe menu switches the daily bird between the whole world and other regions.

1. Type a species name into the Guess box and press Submit.
2. Keep going up to six guesses, stepping through the photos with the arrows and opening the Range map when you need it.

Birdle is built for people who already know birds by family - birders, biology students, anyone with an eBird account - because the feedback is only actionable if 'Anseriformes' or 'Tytonidae' means something to you. For everybody else, six guesses against a world list is closer to a lottery than a puzzle, and the regional dailies are the only thing that makes it tractable. The photographs and range maps come straight from eBird and the Macaulay Library, so the identification work is the real thing rather than a stylised version of it.

Each guess adds a row under four headings: Order, Family, Genus, Common Name. The row marks which of those ranks your guess shares with the bird of the day, so a matching Family means the right group and the wrong species.

Daily bird

One species a day, the same for everyone playing the same region, with six guesses.

Regional dailies

The globe menu swaps the daily between World and other regions.

Practice

Rounds outside the daily, reached from the Practice link in the top bar.

• Open the Range map before you commit. It eliminates whole continents in one look.
• Spend the first guess on a species chosen to test an order rather than on your actual hunch. Matching the Order rules out far more of the field than a near miss on the common name.