SteamMonkey

So, I made some bear hide boots randomly, never made them before but it appears they make you run faster than barefoot. Or maybe just any boots? I'll be doing some more exhaustive testing later, but I figured I'd throw this up first to make sure I wasn't saying something that was common knowledge.

My first playthrough I had trouble finding the birds. there were NONE visible from the coastline of my island anywhere. I ended up making a little boat and circling the island while slowly getting further and further from shore. I eventually found 1 bird, followed them to an island and the next one had a couple of birds I could see from it, etc. That first one was just a pain. The render distance is sort of... bad. You can sail a circle around an island and never see it, look on the map and never see it, get 2 feet closer and bam, it pops up. To get an idea of how far you can see, load up a map and look at how big the circle that is revealed is, on a ship, the render distance is ~twice that from what I can tell. That will help you figure out where your blindspots are.

I found a fair amount on my starter island, it had oaks, flax, was mostly green, no snow, no bamboo, no tropical plants/palms and no conifers. If that gives an indication of the type of biome.