We’re all familiar with some of the basic collective nouns for birds, such as a murder of crows or a gaggle of geese, but what about a charm of finches or a parliament of owls?
So we’ve assembled a list of collective nouns for various types of birds. While the first term is typically the most common, the others are equally acceptable.
Before we get to specific groups of birds, a group of general birds has a number of names you can use. Perhaps the most common is a flock of birds, but it can also be a flight, volery, or brace.
Bitterns: sedge
Chickens: brood, clutch, peep
Cormorants: gulp
Cranes: herd, sedge
Crows: murder, congress
Doves: dole, flight, piteousness
Ducks: Raft, brace, paddling, raft
Eagles: convocation, aerie
Emus: mob
Finches: charm
Flamingoes: stand, flamboyance, pat
Geese: gaggle (on the ground), skein (in flight), plump (flying close together)
Grouse: covey, pack
Gulls: colony
Hawks: boil, cast, kettle, lease
Herons: seige, sedge
Ibises: colony
Jays: band, party, scold
Lapwings: deceit, desert
Larks: bevy, exaltation
Magpies: charm, congregation, gulp, murder, tiding, tittering
Mallards: flush, puddling, sord, suit
Nightingales: watch
Owls: parliament, stare, wisdom
Parrots: company, pandemonium
Peacocks: muster, ostentation, pride, party
Pelicans: squadron, scoop, pod
Penguins: colony, waddle, rookery (on land), raft (at sea)
Pheasants: bouquet, nye, nide, nest, head
Pigeons: kit
Plovers: congregation, stand, wing
Quails: bevy, covey, drift
Ravens: congress, unkindness
Rooks: building, parliament
Sandpipers: fling
Snipes: walk, whisp
Sparrows: host, meinie, tribe
Starlings: chattering, cloud, congregation, murmuration, clattering
Storks: mustering, phalanx (migrating)
Swallows: flight, gulp
Swans: wedge, team, lamentation, bank, bevy, drift, eyrar, flight, whiting
Swifts: flock, scream
Turkeys: gang, rafter, gobble, posse, raffle
Vultures: wake, venue
Waterfowl: bunch, knob, raft
Woodcocks: fall
Woodpeckers: descent
Wrens: herd, chime
43 Comments
Leave out the politics please, I came here to get away from it
What are a group of several TERNS called?
This collection of collective nouns made me compose a doggerel:
The CONVOCATION of EAGLES was a grand affair
With a BAND of JAYS, playing a formal air.
Held next to a PARLIAMENT of OWLS, all wise
Under the close WATCH of NIGHTINGALES, all of one size
When a MOB of EMUS tried to gate-crash
The FLAMBOYANCE of FLAMINGOS made them less rash
A CONGRESS of CROWS had planned the whole event
Engaging a COMPANY of PARROTS, a decision to repent
For a HERD of HERONS was by far a better choice
And a BRACE of DUCKS, their pet errand boys
A BROOD of CHICKEN was needed for the dinner
And the KETTLE of HAWKS used was a real winner