Gregarity terms of birds.
One of my eljay friends surrealkitten posted about unusual names for groups of animals, one of my favourite areas of both biology and the english language ever since i heard the expression "pod of whales" when i was a wee bairn.
so, here are some of the more interesting and neat names of just some birds. Look this stuff up yourself and see what other gregarity names you can find!
creche of penguins
conspiracy of ravens
ascension of larks
deceit of lapwings
lamentation of swans
murder of crows (one of the more famous perhaps?)
parliament of rooks (and of owls)
piteousness of doves
unkindness of ravens
and an interesting one, which goes back to the middle ages (as i imagine, based of the iconic connection of nouns to birds, many of these terms do), all three of the following can also be called the
"story-telling" of....ravens, crows, and rooks.
Europeans believed that when these birds alighted as a group upon the ground, say in a field, that one of the birds seemed to gather the center of attention from the others in the flock. So, it was their belief that this bird was telling a story to the others (or in the case of rooks, perhaps they would speak as in parliament). Hence, the rise of this collection noun as well the idea that ravens and rooks may be wise, or tellers of tales, in some folklore and that crows may be plotting against you.
as a side note, it was believed that ravens were once pure white and one of the prettiest of all birds as well as blessed of Phoebus Apollo. Then the favourite bird of the god lied to him about his lover's infidelities which led to Apollo killing her and her lover. Like a truly irrational greek god (surprise!) he also punished the raven by darkening his feathers and making him an unclean scavenger.
so, here are some of the more interesting and neat names of just some birds. Look this stuff up yourself and see what other gregarity names you can find!
creche of penguins
conspiracy of ravens
ascension of larks
deceit of lapwings
lamentation of swans
murder of crows (one of the more famous perhaps?)
parliament of rooks (and of owls)
piteousness of doves
unkindness of ravens
and an interesting one, which goes back to the middle ages (as i imagine, based of the iconic connection of nouns to birds, many of these terms do), all three of the following can also be called the
"story-telling" of....ravens, crows, and rooks.
Europeans believed that when these birds alighted as a group upon the ground, say in a field, that one of the birds seemed to gather the center of attention from the others in the flock. So, it was their belief that this bird was telling a story to the others (or in the case of rooks, perhaps they would speak as in parliament). Hence, the rise of this collection noun as well the idea that ravens and rooks may be wise, or tellers of tales, in some folklore and that crows may be plotting against you.
as a side note, it was believed that ravens were once pure white and one of the prettiest of all birds as well as blessed of Phoebus Apollo. Then the favourite bird of the god lied to him about his lover's infidelities which led to Apollo killing her and her lover. Like a truly irrational greek god (surprise!) he also punished the raven by darkening his feathers and making him an unclean scavenger.