A Murder, a Party, a Stare or a Siege

Collective nouns are a mixture of poetry, alliteration, and description. Victorians often made up creative names for groups of birds, as a parlor game. Many names bring a vision of the birds instantly to mind. How about this spring of teal? These are Green-winged Teal.

So what would a bunch of BirdNote listeners be called? A gaggle? A flock? A watch? Here's the list so far -- check out the blog.)

BirdNote^®

A Murder, a Party, a Stare, or a Siege?

Written by Ellen Blackstone

This is BirdNote.

[American Crow: one caw]

One crow is just a crow.

[American Crow: two caws]

Two make a pair. Three might be a crowd, but a group of crows is called “a murder.”

[American Crow: many caws]

A fitting name for this bunch of rascals! How did such a name come about?

According to James Lipton, author of An Exaltation of Larks …

[song of Western Meadowlark]

These names—called collective nouns—have been around for hundreds of years. Others believe that the Victorians invented many of these names as a fanciful parlor game. Collective nouns are a mixture of poetry, alliteration, and description. These labels are not used by ornithologists, but they add a bit of fun to the study of birds, don’t you think?

[Song of Western Meadowlark]

If you’ve ever watched a parade of swans on a lake, you can see why it’s called a “wedge” of swans. Bold, raucous jays make up a “party” of jays. Many names bring an image of the birds instantly to mind: a “stare” of owls, a “company” of parrots, a “spring” of teal.

[Flock of “ducks” rising from water]

Now, here’s one that might be misnamed. Do you think all this noise should be called a “murmuration” of starlings?

[Chatter and squawk of European Starlings]

So what would a group of BirdNote listeners be? Hmmm…

For BirdNote, I'm Michael Stein.

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Call of the birds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Crows recorded by G.A. Keller and A.B. VandenBerg; Western Meadowlark by W.R. Fish; and flock of ducks 2479 rising from the water by A.A. Allen.
Sound of European Starlings provided by Martyn Stewart of naturesound.org. Ambient by C.Peterson

Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2012 Tune In to Nature.org September 2012 / September 2015 / 2021 January 2024

Narrator: Michael Stein

ID#091505nouns language-01