Game creator: Steven & Tara Poelzing
Ages 6 and up
2 to 4 players
Deal 4 cards to each player. Players should not show each other their cards, but they can look at their own.
- Put the rest of the cards in a stack in the center of the
playing area (the tree).
- Take one card from the tree and place it in the middle of the
playing area (the shrubbery). Its orientation at this point is
unimportant.
- The youngest player starts first.
- You can play as many cards as you like next to a card in the
shrubbery if every detail (bird name, color, family, and range) on
the cards are similar or different. This makes a group. For example,
if an American Robin is in the shrubbery, a player may play an
Eastern Towhee and a Rose-breasted Grosbeak because they all are
color coded black, each one is part of a different family (Thrush,
Sparrow, and Cardinal respectively), each has a different number of
feathers (4, 3 and 2 respectively), and the ranges of the birds are
all different.
- A legal group contains at least 3 birds.
- All groups must be horizontal or vertical. You cannot play cards
diagonally.
- Cards can only be played next to cards already in the shrubbery
only if the card in the shrubbery is included in the new group.
- Cards played in the shrubbery may touch other cards as along as
rule 5 is followed. NOTE: You can create a group and have one of your
cards touching another card that does not make a group.
- All cards in the rows and columns of the newly played card(s)
are rotated so they can be read by you if they constitute a group.
You can play a single card on a group of 3 or more cards and still
get credit for the group as long as your new card follows rule 5.
- If you empty your hand or there are no more birds in the tree,
the game ends.
- Draw a card at the end of the turn.
- Add up all the feathers on the birds oriented toward you.
Subtract the number of feathers in your hand from the your total..
- The player with the lowest score starts the next round.
- Play to 200