Anita’s Blog — The Boringness of Flocks

While researching for the previous post about yellow-rumped warblers, the use of the word flock became monotonous and I was reminded that there are so many more fun and creative words to describe the gathering of more than two or three birds.

It’s called collective bird nouns and they’ve been around since the 15th century. The glory of this art is that it isn’t stagnant and it’s something anyone can do.

For those who would like to add to this lexicon of collective tagging, there are only a couple of rules:

• The noun should reflect a trait of the species
• Alliteration is good but not necessary

A murder of crows is probably the most well-known collective bird noun.

How, you ask, is it that murder describes a crow trait? Apparently it’s steeped in folklore and superstition.

In one folktale, it is said that crows will gather and decide the capital fate of another crow.

Ok, birders, please voice in here. Is that sort of trait something that crows exhibit?

Another speculation is that the appearance of crows is an omen of death because they are scavengers and generally associated with dead and rotting bodies, battlefields, and cemeteries. Crows are thought to circle in large numbers above sites where animals or people are expected to soon die.

Still another is that medieval peasants feared that the sinister-looking corvids had been sent by the devil or were witches in disguise, primarily because the color black was associated with witches and evil.

Less dastardly descriptive words for a group of crows are congress, parliament, horde, muster, mob and cauldron.

Similarly, an unkindness of ravens could stem from a misguided 19th-century belief that the birds were not the most caring of parents, sometimes expelling their young from their nests to fend for themselves way before they were ready.

Leaving all that morbidity behind, let’s get back to the darting warblers that I wrote about in the previous post. There’s no specific collective noun for yellow-rumped warblers.

There are collective nouns for warblers in general, such as a confusion of warblers, wrench, fall, sweetness or bouquet of warblers. Those words don’t fit traits of the warblers in our mesquites; so, I’ve made up a couple of my own collective nouns that describe them: a wonderment of warblers, or a darteration of warblers. My reasoning is that I stood in wonder and watched the wee birds dart around the mesquite trees.

There are some species-specific warbler nouns. The palm warbler is a warbler that winters over a bit further up the coast, around Corpus Christi. If you were describing a flock of palm warblers, it would be correct to say — a reading of palm warblers — get it? Palm reading — too funny!

Here’s one specifically for the little black and white warblers that’s quite apropos, a dichotomy of black and white warblers.

So you’re beginning to catch on to the style of collective bird nouns and see that there’s also a bit of tongue-in-cheekness about it. But you’ve got to wonder, who makes these up? Personally, I suspect a murmeration of people — perhaps birders, probably some writers and definitely logophiles — periodically gather in secret, and then eventually new lists end up on the Web.

A number of waterbirds are coming onto the resaca. I looked up some of the collective nouns for our visiting “flocks.”

Nothing found for blue-winged teal, although for ducks in general we find a badling of ducks. (Medieval, perhaps a variant of paddling or derived from babble.)

If ducks are on water, a paddling of ducks. That seems to fit what I see the ducks doing. Other duck collectives are raft, sord, team, twack — don’t ask — I’ve only found modern definitions for twack — nothing to do with ducks.

Specifically for teal, a diving or spring of teal. To me, a drift of teal is a more accurate description than spring.

A water dance of grebes. I can see that. Grebes are fun to watch. They’re the smallest floating birds on the water, hardly bigger than a bullfrog.

Cover of coots or covert, commotion or cooperation of coots. Or fleet, raft or swarm. Our coots go around pecking at the water acting like bobble-heads, so perhaps, a pecking of coots or a bobbling of coots?

Nothing was found for scaups either, so I made up my own, A scampering of scaups, not that they scamper, but it’s good alliteration. They do hare away when I get too close. A scurry of scaups?

Forty American white pelicans have invaded the resaca, eating us out of house and pond. Officially, we have a pod, scoop, squadron, colony, crèche, huddle, parcel or rookery of pelicans, but why not a regatta or flotilla of pelicans when they’re regally drifting along in the near dawn darkness, looking like swans? Or, when devouring hordes/schools/runs/hauls/shoals of fish in a feeding frenzy, why not a gluttony of pelicans?

Let’s leave the water and get into the trees — a scold of jays — I can see that, or rather hear it. A banditry of titmice — one definition of banditry is the practice of plundering in gangs. I haven’t noticed that particular gang-like activity in our titmice.

Surprisingly, I have yet to find a collective noun for blackbirds, nor specifically for red-winged blackbirds. As the art of collective bird nouns began in England, I was surprised not to find a pie of blackbirds — as in “four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie . . . .” Perhaps a rhyme of blackbirds?

Here again, I’ll have to be satisfied with making up my own. A bevy of blackbirds. A rush? A barrage? Not that they’re aggressive so maybe a wave of blackbirds is better suited. In summer, wave after wave of blackbirds undulate across the morning sky as bands of blackbirds leave the brush on their way to their “day jobs.”

Here are some official collective nouns:

A cackle of grackles — indeed!

A mumuration of starlings

A swoop of swallows

An impression of mockingbirds

This one’s really good! A wake of turkey vultures

The fun doesn’t stop with birds. There are collective nouns for insects and animals, and, unsurprisingly, flocks of people — groups, troupes, panels, posses, squads and  societies of humans!

A kaleidoscope of butterflies, a rabble, a rainbow, a flutter of butterflies

An intrusion of cockroaches

A scourge of mosquitoes

A lounge of lizards

A leap of leopards

A surprise of unicorns — I know it would surprise me to see a flock of unicorns along the banks of the resaca instead of a choir of black-bellied whistling-ducks.

A dignity of dragons . . . .

I could go on. I hope you feel creative enough to make up your own collective nouns and share them with us.

To get you started, Google: collective venery nouns or collective bird nouns.