Words On Birds 08-19-22

Fun Descriptions of Birds
August 19, 2022
By Steve Grinley

     Some time ago, I shared with you a list of venereal terms for groups of birds such as a “charm of goldfinches” and a “murder of crows.” On one of the birding listserves, some lists of FUN descriptions of birds have appeared. I have selected my favorites to share with you today:

A hood of robins
A litter of catbirds
A ridicule of mockingbirds
A nebula of starlings
An alphabet of jays
A maniac of ravens
A garagesale of juncos
A w.c. fielding of chickadees
A frankincense of murres
A suite of bitterns
An album of rock wrens
A tankful of petrels
A Ulysses of brant
An 8×10 of glossy ibis.
A shishkebab of skuas
A coronation of emperor geese
A drift of snow geese
A timber of wood ducks
A wave of surf scoters
An asylum of common loons
A brass of horned grebes
A triangle of Bermuda petrels
A tart of American bitterns
An illusion of merlins
An hilarity of laughing gulls
An applause of clapper rails
A dune of sandhill cranes
A haze of purple sandpipers
A ladle of spoonbills
A mint of Franklin’s gulls
A glimmer of Northern flickers
An oxymoron of greater pewees
A tickle of ivory gulls
A dagwood of Sandwich terns
A workshop of elf owls
A pilot of palm warblers
A range of ovenbirds
A tinkling of Bell’s vireos
A hangover of red-eyed vireos
A derby of Kentucky warblers
A fifth of wild turkeys
A tanning of bronzed cowbirds
A lamentation of mourning warblers
A lettering of scarlet tanagers
An oxidation of rusty blackbirds
A chain of bobolinks
A paddling of red-tails.
And one for the Red Sox: An outfield of flycatchers!