Introduction to Fantasy Birding

Fantasy Birding is basically the bird-watching version of Fantasy Baseball. Except you don't wait for players and drafts, you wait for the bird to appear on the screen. Matt Smith's hit game is generally for birders and for people who want to do a Big Year without putting miles on a van or spending a dime.So I thought I would write about the basics and the advanced way of playing Fantasy Birding!
THE BASICS:
Step 1: 
Create an account. Virtually everything you do online you have to create an account for. Make it what ever you want! A certain bird name, your name, etc. 

Step 2:
Set your avatar. You created an account, and that's great.But you might want an avatar.TO SET YOUR AVATAR: Click on the gray bird on your top right. When you press it you, you will see a word that says "Set Avatar." So look at all the species photos and choose one. Then press the photo and it will bring you back to the main screen.
Step 3: Start a game! In order to actually play the game, you have to JOIN A GAME. There will be a tab on the home screen, that says Join Game. So press it. There will be a variety of games from BIG YEAR 2019 to GLOBAL BIG YEAR 2019. I personally like the BIG YEAR 2019 (ABA Area game) over the GLOBAL BIG YEAR for one reason. TIME ZONES. The biggest problem about the Global game is the time zones, for example: India is 9 HOURS AND 30 MINUTES AHEAD OF THE EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME (EDT). My opinion, though. I am in the BIG YEAR 2019, which is the ABA Area game (Canada and United States). 
STEP 4: SET YOUR LOCATION! Once you joined a game and stuff, you might or should I say NEED to set a location up. So got to your calendar and press "SET LOCATION", when you do that you want to obviously set a location. Choose a local hotspot or far away hotspot. When you press your hotspot, you will see a big red circle, that means you choose your spot. Regular inland hotspots will be a in a 10 killometer radius and pelagics in 50 killometer radius. Pelagics are a great way to add species to your list. (I will discuss pelagics in other post in the coming week or two). You won't be able to set your location on the date you are at (e.g., if you signed up and set a location on Oct 15th). You will have to set it as tomorrows date (e.g., Oct 16th). Cause you can't set a location pass 6 AM of the date that your on. If you could set a location pass 6 AM, It will give you advantage of the TIME ZONES. 
STEP 5: Enjoy The Game: If you saw the "Big Year" movie, you will know it is a hassle to do a Big Year. But lucky for FanBirders, all you have to do is sit on your butt and wait for the bird!

ADVANCED:
Chasing Rarities:
Your finding the common birds and want to find interesting birds. So chase rarities! Matt Smith made this game so good, that you can chase rarities. On the Home Screen, there will be a noticeable screen with that says "Hotline", below that is a pink banner that says " Sightings reported here may or may not have been confirmed, and some may have been misidentified. Chase at your own risk!". There might be something interesting, like a Black-headed Gull or Little Gull. And sometimes something even rare, like a Bahama Mockingbird. All you have to do is press "Chase". And that is it. 

Looking at your list:
In order to look at your list, there will be a tab on your personal game screen that says "List". When you press it, there will be other tabs. But to look at your list, loom at the tab that says "Valid". And there is your full list. And then there is a tab that says "Recent" that is your most recent species. And then there is the Provisional, that is where the rarities are until they have been accepted. Sometimes birds will be REJECTED!! Meaning that they did not accept the rarity.

Hope this helped y'all!
- Tony (Fanbird alias: Red-necked Stint)

JACK SNIPE AND EURASIAN SKYLARK. ST.PAUL AND HAWAII

I checked my Fantasy Birding stats and saw that I got the Code 4 JACK SNIPE and Eurasian Skylark (Code 2). But I also got Gray Francolin, Spotted Dove, Zebra Dove, Common Myna, Saffron Finch, and Java Sparrow in Hawaii! I am now up to 517 species.

- Tony

St.Paul 8/26-27 19

Hi!
I recently just been in St.Paul for a while now. And have gotten Mottled Petrel, Siberian Accentor, and Little Bunting. Jack Snipe and Eurasian Skylark are in the Provisional tab. And then creator Matt Smith tells me that Aaron Lang and Gaylee Dee had a possible Long-legged Buzzard at St.Paul IRL! Hopefully ID gets accepted!

Tony