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Birds

Birds come and go with the time of day and the weather:

  • Morning: a dawn chorus of birdsong greets players who are outdoors at sunrise.
  • Night: gulls head out to sea, pigeons roost on rooftops, and ducks and swans sleep on the water.
  • Rain: fewer birds come out.

Seagulls​

Seagulls live along the coast, in the wilderness. They never follow anyone into a town.

They steal food. A gull that spots you carrying food will:

  1. hover and squawk;
  2. dive and take one item;
  3. fly off with it in its beak to a roof, tree or the water to eat it.

Get it back: hit the gull, or land a snowball or arrow next to it, and it drops your food. Better still, keep your food out of sight on the beach, or eat inside a town.

Pigeons​

Pigeons live in big towns (100 or more claimed chunks):

  • Daily life: they strut, bob their heads, peck at the ground and coo.
  • Variants: most are ordinary feral pigeons, but look out for the white ones, the slow wise old pigeon and the limping battle-scarred one.
  • Calm around people: they ignore you strolling past or standing about. They take off if you walk straight at them, sprint nearby or get very close. When one goes, the flock follows.
  • Feeding: throw bread or seeds on the ground and nearby pigeons swoop in to eat. If none are about, a flock flies in. Bird Seed brings a bigger flock from further away.

Droppings: a pigeon flying overhead, or perched on a ledge above you, might score a direct hit. A white splat sits on your head until water or rain washes it off. It's good luck: you get a few minutes of the Luck effect. A roof over your head keeps you safe. Mayors can turn droppings off for their town (Wildlife for towns).

Tame pigeons are covered in Pigeon keeping.

Ducks​

Mallard families live on rivers, lakes, ponds and swamps, but not the sea:

  • a grey drake with a chestnut chest;
  • a mottled brown hen;
  • often a line of fluffy yellow ducklings following their mother.

They paddle about, dabble bottom-up, waddle onto the bank to preen, and quack.

  • Skittish: get close and the family paddles away across the water; sneaking lets you get nearer. A mother never leaves her ducklings.
  • Feeding: bread or seeds thrown into the water or onto the bank bring them paddling over.

Mute swans​

A cob and a pen live on a good stretch of open water, sometimes with grey cygnets. They glide, upend to feed, and sleep on the water at night.

Swans are territorial

Come within about 5 blocks (more if they have cygnets) and they rear up, raise their wings and hiss. Keep coming, or hang about, and the cob charges: one hard peck and a shove before he sails back home. Sneaking helps. Hitting a swan makes it come for you.

Geese​

  • Canada geese (black neck, white chinstrap) graze in gaggles on grassy banks near water. Watch the sky too: a V of Canada geese sometimes passes high overhead, honking, legs drawn up.
  • White geese live in and around towns.

Geese stand their ground. Get within about 5 blocks and the gaggle stretches out its necks and hisses; push in and one of them charges and pecks. Hit a goose and it comes straight for you.

Owls​

At night in the forest, owls sit on the treetops. An owl turns its head to follow you as you walk past, hoots now and then, and glides silently to another tree if you come too close. By day it dozes where it sits.

Crows​

By day, small groups of crows hop about fields, parks and the edges of towns, pecking at the ground and cawing. There are three kinds:

  • carrion crows, all black, found everywhere;
  • jackdaws, smaller, with a grey nape and pale eyes;
  • magpies, black and white with a long tail.

In the Americas you'll only see carrion crows.

Crows are clever and wary. Walk up to them and they fly off to a tree or a roof. Sneak, and you can get much closer.

Feeding crows​

Throw some food on the ground near crows (bread, seeds, an earthworm...) and one will come down and peck it up. Crows remember who feeds them. Feed them often and:

  • they let you come closer;
  • after a while, a crow will sometimes fly down and leave you a gift: a gold or iron nugget, a feather, some string, an amethyst shard, and every so often something better.

Don't hurt a crow​

Crows also remember faces. Hurt one and every crow nearby comes to mob you: they swoop over your head cawing, with the odd sharp peck. For about half an hour afterwards they won't take your food, and any crow that spots you may start mobbing you again. Hurting a crow also undoes a good deal of the trust you'd built up.