Wingspan Pocket Bird Powers: Brown, Green & Timing

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Brown Wingspan Pocket powers may activate after your nest action, from left to right. Green powers apply during your own turns while the bird is in your flock. Treat these as different timing systems: a green ability is not another brown activation, and drawing a bird is not playing it.

Researched rules guide. Checked September 12, 2026. English multiplayer rules r14 and publisher FAQ; card wording controls each effect. No hands-on testing is claimed. Editorial standards.

On this page: Brown powers: action first, flock second · Green powers: check the wording’s scope · Arrow costs and independent instructions · Tucking uses reserve cards, not imagined draws · Hunting compares the revealed bird’s wingspan · Copying does not erase timing or costs · An empty bird market stays empty until the refill

Brown powers: action first, flock second

Complete your chosen nest action, then walk through played brown powers from the left end of your flock to the right. You may skip an optional power. A bird just played is already in the flock, so its brown power can activate that turn at its position in the sequence.

Order affects what resources you can use. If an earlier power draws a reserve card, a later tucking power may use a qualifying card from that enlarged reserve. If the draw is on the right and the tuck on the left, you cannot go back and reactivate the earlier bird after obtaining the card.

Example: A left-hand bird draws one food and a later bird asks you to discard a food for a benefit. You can use the newly drawn food if it satisfies that later text. Reverse their order and you need the payment already available when you reach the cost. This is a timing example, not a claim about a specific named card.

Green powers: check the wording’s scope

A green power is ongoing during your own turns, beginning as soon as its bird is played. Skip that bird when resolving the brown sequence. Its text may modify a cost or another effect rather than grant a standalone extra action.

Two abilities that mention food can work differently. Ignoring a specified food in a bird’s playing cost reduces that printed requirement. Using a specified food as a wildcard for playing birds changes which card can pay. Changing a symbol in another power changes the effect’s text. Do not transfer an ability into a context its wording does not cover.

The power must be on a bird in your flock. A green bird sitting unplayed in your reserve does not provide an active discount. Likewise, copying a green power requires the source and conditions in the copying card’s own text.

Arrow costs and independent instructions

An arrow separates a required payment from its benefit. You must satisfy the cost to take the resulting benefit; you cannot accept the benefit and promise to pay later. Decide whether the exchange is worthwhile at the point that power resolves.

Where an effect gives two instructions without a payment arrow, the rules allow the independent instructions to be done separately, in either order, as applicable. Read the actual card rather than treating every two-part power as a trade.

Never turn an optional activation into a forced loss of a valuable reserve card. You can skip a brown power when you want to keep the card it would consume.

Tucking uses reserve cards, not imagined draws

Follow the specified source and kind of card. A power that tucks a reserve card uses an actual eligible card you own. It does not grant a free market pickup unless it also explicitly instructs a draw.

Tucked cards sit behind the bird and are worth one point each at scoring. They are no longer available in your reserve to pay food or to play as birds. There is no general small fixed tuck limit on a bird; apply the effect’s per-activation amount.

Decision example: Tucking an otherwise unwanted card gives a certain end point. Tucking the food you need for a planned sixth bird may remove an option worth more. The rules permit the tuck; deciding whether it helps is a separate strategy question.

Hunting compares the revealed bird’s wingspan

A hunting power reveals the top card of a food deck as a bird and checks its wingspan against the card’s stated threshold. “Less than” is strict: a revealed value equal to the threshold does not satisfy it. Tuck a successful reveal as instructed; discard an unsuccessful one.

That reveal is part of the hunting effect. It is not a reserve bird you can choose to keep instead because you prefer its printed points. Resolve the named outcome and restore the market/deck procedure as the rules require.

Copying does not erase timing or costs

For a copied brown power, resolve the chosen effect as the copying bird’s effect for that activation. If the chosen effect has a payment, you still need to pay it. Copying does not let you reuse an earlier physical card twice without an effect authorizing it.

A green copying effect can select another player’s flock power according to its text. A copied rule remains limited to its original context. Agree which effect is copied before applying it, especially if it changes food costs.

An empty bird market stays empty until the refill

The bird market refills after the turn’s actions and powers. If you take the last available birds with your nest action, a later bird-drawing power cannot invent a replacement to draw. That benefit is unavailable when no birds remain.

Food deck tops expose their next card immediately, so food and bird availability are different. Check both before committing to a draw action intended to feed an entire power sequence.

Keep the current publisher FAQ beside the rulebook for ambiguous wording. A general explanation cannot replace an individual card’s specified source, target, quantity or timing.

Sources and scope

Checked September 12, 2026. Examples are original illustrations; use the rulebook for card-specific wording and edition differences.

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