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
You should try and look at it from a different view and appreciate the list he provided. I say bravo. And be nicer 😐
What is a group of Cardinals called?
Life long casual bird observer. with three birds feeders we often have about 10+ birds. Watch from 2nd story deck and good binoculars on monopod, while sitting.
Question: with several bird books in hand we have one variety unable to identify. It closely matches the black hooded chickadee in all details except there is no white anywhere around the neck head area. All three books do not picture chickadees without some collar of white on the males. Guess these, mine, our a new different type? Can you help?