Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Furthering my education

On Sunday, Harvs and I saw a gang of six magpies in a tree. After reciting:

1 for sorrow,

2 for joy,

3 for a girl,
and 4 for a boy,

5 for silver,

6 for gold ... (7 for a secret never to be told, Maaaaa-agpie),


I asked Harvs what he thought the correct term might be for a gang of magpies. He suggested crater. When I asked why, he said it just sounded good to him: a crater of magpies.

I wondered about chevron but he thought that was too obvious.

Anyway,today, blog-browsing, I came across this on Tumbled Words blog. It lists birds and the proper names for a group of them.

It's a tidings of magpies. And a siege of bitterns and a kettle of nighthawks. Fascinating. Now before a convocation of eagles arrives and carries me off ...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't normally count as far as 7, normally I see 4 in my fenland landscape.

Anonymous said...

Suggest a collective noun for us bloggers :-)

Clare said...

a dazzle of zebras is my favourite!

a waffle of bloggers? a ramble of bloggers? or is that just me?

Shades said...

(Magpie-Sue Stranks, stuff of teenage boyhood fantasy. Fwooar!)

For political types, the phrse has to be a belligerence of bloggers...

Unknown said...

The deep you dig into the subject and give us the accurate data is appreciable.
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