The migration game is one button. Everything else is knowing what you are looking at, which is what this page is for.
Hold to climb, let go to glide. That is the whole thing. Flapping burns energy, gliding does not.
Space bar, mouse button, or a finger on the screen. Your bird climbs.
You glide down. Free. Most of a good run is gliding.
Mutes the sound. The sound is worth having on.
The orange bar on the right. Climbing spends it, eating refills it. At empty you cannot climb, and you come down. Over the sea and the desert there is nothing to eat, so arrive with a full tank.
The hearts under the energy bar. You lose one each time you hit something. Lose them all and the run ends where it ends.
Top left: how far you have flown this run. Everyone’s miles are added to the shared total that buys land.
Miles, food, clean stages and near misses all score. The leaderboard uses points, not miles.
Food refills the energy bar. Eating several in a row multiplies the points.
The small yellow ovals floating in the air. Fly through them. They are the main way to refuel, and they come in lines and arcs you can sweep up in one pass.
Only on the osprey’s route. They break the surface of the water for a moment, then dive. Catch one as it rises: worth ten times a seed.
Everything here costs a life. Passing close without touching scores a near miss, which is where the big points are.
White towers with turning blades. The tower is solid and the blades sweep, so time your pass. Wind farms kill real birds, which is why they are in the game.
Grey lattice pylons with three sagging wires strung between them. The wires are the danger, not the pylon: fly above the top wire or through a gap. Collision with power lines kills more storks, cranes and birds of prey than almost anything else.
Brown peaks rising from the ground. Solid all the way up. Climb early rather than late.
A dark falcon that waits on a perch, then stoops at you. You get a moment’s warning. Change your height when it comes.
Rolling orange walls over the Sahara. They hide what is behind them and drain energy while you are inside. Go over the top if you can.
Columns of rising warm air, marked by drifting specks. Circle up inside one and you climb for free. The osprey and the goose live on these.
Arrows drawn across the sky. A headwind slows you and costs energy; a tailwind is free speed. Gusts shove you up or down without warning, mostly over water.
Each route is five legs with different weather and hazards. Finish a leg without being hit and you get a clean-stage bonus.
If you lose your lives you can carry on from where you fell, once per stage, at the cost of some points. Or take the score and try again.
Unlocked once you finish a route as an adult. Fewer lives, less energy, no map in your head. It is how most young birds actually die on their first migration.
Reach the end of the fifth stage and the real story of that migration unlocks, and the bird joins your life list.
Post in the BirdForum thread and I will answer, or mail will@redefined.co.uk. If something on screen is unclear, that is a fault in the game rather than in you, and I would like to know about it.