Flyway

Flyway asks one question five times a day: where is that bird? Each edition is numbered and dated, and every player gets the same five North American species, ordered from birds with a vast range to ones with a small local range. Today's first bird, for example, was the Red-tailed Hawk, marked as a vast range.

Each bird comes with a photo, its common and scientific names, and the month you are asked about. You click or tap the map of the continent to drop a pin, zoom in if you need to, and lock in your guess. The bird's range for that month is then drawn in shades of orange, with the most common areas darkest and the rest of the year's range in pale pink. A pin inside the range scores 1,000 points; a pin outside it scores less the farther away it lands. A short note says how the bird moves through the year, and a strip of twelve months lets you play the year to watch its range shift.

Because the ranges change with the seasons, the right answer moves through the year: a warbler that breeds in Canada in summer may be on the Gulf coast by October. After you finish, the pins of other players who finished the same day show as dots with no names, so you can see where everyone else guessed.

Beyond the daily there is Unlimited, one bird at a time in any month, an archive of past editions, and Groups, where friends join under a name and see each other's scores. Play needs no account; signing in with Google or an email only carries your games between devices. Flyway is a personal project made and run by one person, and its privacy page says it has no ads at present.

It suits birders who know their field guide's range maps and anyone who wants to learn where common North American birds spend each season.