Have I confused you yet? We all know the collective noun for a group of birds of any type is called a flock.
Many of you might have heard of a murder of crows, or a gaggle of geese…but what else is out there? What other old terms, perhaps used for centuries and now mostly forgotten, lurk in dusty dictionaries and little viewed academic webpages?
I saw the most amazing video posted on facebook this afternoon of a murmuring of starlings. I’d never heard that term before, and it got my brain zipping about with story ideas. Of course I wondered what ELSE might be out here. So to increase your knowledge, and sometimes make you giggle, here are some other collective nouns for birds.
- Chickens- a peep of chickens
- Cranes- a herd of cranes
- Crows- a murder of crows
- Doves- a flight of doves or a dole/dule of doves
- Ducks- a badling of ducks or a raft of ducks
- Goldfinches- a charm of goldfinches
- Geese- a gaggle of geese or a skein of geese
- Guinea Fowl- a rasp of guinea fowl
- Hawks- a cast of hawks or a lease of hawks
- Lapwings- a deceit of lapwings or a desert of lapwings
- Larks- an exultation of larks
- Nightingales- a watch of nightingales
- Owls- a parliament of owls
- Parrots- a pandemonium of parrots
- Ravens-an unkindness of ravens
- Starlings- a murmuring of starlings
- Swans- a game of swans or a wedge of swans
- Teal- a spring of teal
Neat isn’t it? There are more of course… and I’ll not even get started on animals… at least not today!
However… what about our supernatural beings? There is a kiss of vampires… but what else? What are your favorite collective nouns?
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