You asked
What does a white power on a bird card mean?
Answered counted as answeredAsked with: Wingspanbg-266192-en-1e
A white power on a bird card (WHEN PLAYED) means: 1. These powers may be activated only when a bird is played [1][2][3]. 2. They can never be activated again after you play the bird [1][2][3]. 3. Using these powers is always optional [1][2][3].
Strategy guides → — community tips, kept separate from rulings
🔧 debug — where this ruling came from
- outcome
- ANSWERED — Answered
- corpus profile
- live
- answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only)
- gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
- timings
- search 254 ms · ask 10590 ms · total 10855 ms
- single-flight (PR-5)
- queued 0 ms · generation 10855 ms
- retrieval refs (raw)
- [{"page": 10, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "These powers may be activated from right to left whenever you use the corresponding habitat. WHEN ACTIVATED (brown): Cache: This refers to putting a food token on a bird (the bird is saving the food for later). You cannot spend that food token; instead, it's worth 1 VP at end of game. If you run out", "headingPath": "Powers on bird cards fall into 3 categories: · ONCE BETWEEN TURNS (pink):", "sharpsignalDocId": 198}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.031754, "snippet": "10 Powers on bird cards fall into 3 categories: WHEN ACTIVATED (brown): These powers may be activated from right to left whenever you use the corresponding habitat. BIRD POWERS This indicates that the bird’s power involves tucking other bird cards under it to represent the creation of a flock. Each ", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 198}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.031025, "snippet": "+ BirdCards_r20.indd 104BirdCards_r20.indd 104 6/15/21 7:28 AM6/15/21 7:28 AM American White Pelican Pelecanus erythrorhynchos Pelicans work together to herd fish and then scoop them up. 274cm 5 WHEN ACTIVATED: Discard a to tuck 2 from the deck behind this bird. + BirdCards_r20.indd 10BirdCards_r20.", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 198}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.02782, "snippet": "9 OPTION 4. Draw Bird Cards and Activate Wetland Bird Powers The cards available for you to draw are the 3 face-up cards on the bird tray and the top card of the bird deck. When you choose to draw cards, do the following: 1. Place an action cube in the leftmost exposed slot in the “draw cards” row o", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 198}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.027289, "snippet": "Place an action cube in the leftmost exposed slot in the 'draw cards' row on your player mat, and draw the number of cards shown there from either the face-up cards on the bird tray or the bird deck. There is no hand limit. If the slot where you placed your action cube shows an egg-to-card bonus con", "headingPath": "When you choose to draw cards, do the following: · Managing the bird deck", "sharpsignalDocId": 198}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.026021, "snippet": "fruit rodent no food : A crossed-out circle means a bird does not have a food cost. Or: This icon in bird costs and other places in Wingspan means 'or' (e.g., pay 1 fish or 1 fruit). When playing birds, you may spend any 2 food tokens as if they are any 1 food token. This exchange cannot be used dur", "headingPath": "Designer's Note: These", "sharpsignalDocId": 198}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.025026, "snippet": "BirdCards_r20.indd 64BirdCards_r20.indd 64 6/15/21 7:24 AM6/15/21 7:24 AM Common Yellowthroat Geothlypis trichas This was one of the first American birds to be cataloged by Linnaeus, in 1766. 18cm 1 WHEN ACTIVATED: Draw 2 . If you do, discard 1 from your hand at the end of your turn. BirdCards_r20.i", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 198}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.024658, "snippet": "Select a bird card in your hand that you want to play, and decide on the habitat where you will play it. The three habitats are: If multiple habitat symbols are shown on the bird card, you can choose which habitat (row) to place it in. Your player mat limits you to a maximum of 5 birds in each habit", "headingPath": "When you choose to play a bird, do the following:", "sharpsignalDocId": 49}]
- citations (raw)
- [{"page": 12, "quote": null, "headingPath": "WHEN PLAYED (white):", "sharpsignalDocId": 49}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 198}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Powers on bird cards fall into 3 categories: · ONCE BETWEEN TURNS (pink):", "sharpsignalDocId": 198}]
- boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
-
no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 198 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 198 boosted
- answered-before recall
-
this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
- debug row retained until
- Nov 5, 2026 13:01
retrieval — what the search arm returned
score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.
per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.
token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.
| fused rank | document | heading | page | fused RRF score | snippet chars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | RULEBOOK Wingspan — Rulebook (corpus doc 198) | Powers on bird cards fall into 3 categories: · ONCE BETWEEN TURNS (pink): | p.10 | 0.032787 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | 300 |
| #2 | RULEBOOK Wingspan — Rulebook (corpus doc 198) | p.10 | 0.031754 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | 300 | |
| #3 | RULEBOOK Wingspan — Rulebook (corpus doc 198) | p.10 | 0.031025 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | 300 | |
| #4 | RULEBOOK Wingspan — Rulebook (corpus doc 198) | p.9 | 0.02782 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | 300 | |
| #5 | RULEBOOK Wingspan — Rulebook (corpus doc 198) | When you choose to draw cards, do the following: · Managing the bird deck | p.9 | 0.027289 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | 300 |
| #6 | RULEBOOK Wingspan — Rulebook (corpus doc 198) | Designer's Note: These | p.6 | 0.026021 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | 300 |
| #7 | RULEBOOK Wingspan — Rulebook (corpus doc 198) | p.9 | 0.025026 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | 300 | |
| #8 | RULEBOOK Wingspan — Asia Rulebook (corpus doc 49) | When you choose to play a bird, do the following: | p.6 | 0.024658 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | 300 |
chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited
token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.
| # | document | heading | page | quote chars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [1] | RULEBOOK Wingspan — Asia Rulebook (corpus doc 49) | WHEN PLAYED (white): | p.12 | no quote on the wire |
| [2] | RULEBOOK Wingspan — Rulebook (corpus doc 198) | p.10 | no quote on the wire | |
| [3] | RULEBOOK Wingspan — Rulebook (corpus doc 198) | Powers on bird cards fall into 3 categories: · ONCE BETWEEN TURNS (pink): | p.10 | no quote on the wire |
generation — timing and the path taken
- timing split
- retrieval 254 ms · first delta 10242 ms · total 10855 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
- full breakdown
- queued 0 ms · retrieval 254 ms · ask 10590 ms · gateway work 10855 ms · total 10855 ms
- tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
- 3531
- tokens out (what the answerer generated)
- 79
- tok/sec
- 136.9 tok/sec — 79 output tokens in 0.577 s of generation
- live seat (read from the running child)
- answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 45s ago)
- stream path
- streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
- watchdog
- first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
- num_ctx · think posture
- both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.
disposition
- outcome
- ANSWERED — Answered
- abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered)
- answered — no abstain rationale applies
setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render
- decision
- NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question
errata registry — what the gate above had to match against
6 errata cards registered for edition 3 — these are what the gate above had to match against
- anatomist · HEADING_EXTRACTED · Wingspan — Update Pack (Corrected Bonus Cards) · corpus doc 66 · p.2
- belted kingfisher · HAND_PINNED · Wingspan — Update Pack (Corrected Bird Cards) · corpus doc 65 · p.17
- ecologist · HEADING_EXTRACTED · Wingspan — Update Pack (Corrected Bonus Cards) · corpus doc 66 · p.5
- oologist · HEADING_EXTRACTED · Wingspan — Update Pack (Corrected Bonus Cards) · corpus doc 66 · p.1
- photographer · HEADING_EXTRACTED · Wingspan — Update Pack (Corrected Bonus Cards) · corpus doc 66 · p.3
- rodentologist · HEADING_EXTRACTED · Wingspan — Update Pack (Corrected Bonus Cards) · corpus doc 66 · p.4
Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.