Collectively speaking - Karen Bush
No, we are not a pack of dogs. Try again ... I was thinking the other day about the collective nouns given to birds. A gaggle of geese sounds just about right when the beastly things are in hot pursuit of you, and a flamboyance of flamingoes is spot on too. I love a bellowing of bullfinches and an omniscience of godwits is just sublime, but a murder of crows seems a bit unfair and unnecessarily name-tarnishing. But it turns out that you can also have a parliament of crows - although it can be confusing as you can have a parliament of owls too. And going by our own parliament that's not exactly a compliment of any kind either. There are some truly wonderful group names, which are not confined solely to birds either - whoever came up with a bloat of hippopotamuses or a fluther of jellyfish? And did you know that the old English term of venery for a load of kittens was a kindle? Think on that next time you switch on your e-reader ... All this pondering naturally led me to th...