What Would You Call Them?

[Mother Dragon]

Groups of animals have some very interesting names. Below are some of the more unusual ones.

A shrewdness of apes
A sloth of bears
An obstinacy of buffalo
A bellowing of bullfinches
A Clowder, Clutter, Pounce, Dout, Nuisance, Glorying, Glare of cats
A bask of crocodiles
A murder of crows
A piteousness of doves
A safe of ducks on land
A busyness of ferrets
A skulk of foxes
A trip of goats
A cast of hawks
A siege of herons
A bloat of hippopotami
A fluther or smack of jellyfish
A kindle or litter of kittens
A tiding of magpies
A stud of mares
A barren of mules
A pandemonium of parrots
An unkindness of ravens
A crash of rhinoceros
A parliament or building of rooks
A knot of toads
A hover of trout
A rafter of turkeys
A bale or turn of turtles
A destruction of wild cats
A drift of wild pigs
A descent of woodpeckers
A zeal of zebras

Now the question is

What would you call the groups of critters at your house?

I have
A circus of squirrels
A pestilence of white-wing doves
A whirlwind of birds at the feeder
A devastation of leaf-footed bugs
A craziness of cats
A racket of neighbors' dogs

 

[Margret]

Wow! Well, we definitely have a cuteness of bunnies (or, as Jasmine says, "Goodie! Prey! Let's go!") AKA an infestation, AKA pretty good proof that the coyote pack that died out last year has apparently not been replaced yet.

I think we only have one dove/pigeon in the neighborhood; I hear it most days, but I think I'd notice if I were hearing more than one.

And we seem to have a stealth of bats. My neighbor discovered that they'd been roosting in his attic (for years, judging by the amount of guano he shoveled out) and put up a bat house to try to lure them away, as well as fixing the hole they were using to get in.

By the way, the plural of "hippopotamus" is "hippopotamuses," not "hippopotami," though it's a common mistake. (See, I told you I was pedantic.)


Margret

 

[Winchester]

We call our cats a clan or The Clan. Years ago, our original clan used to be called the RugCats. Pepe and Amber still are RugCats. Mollipop, Tabby, and Muffin are the Three Meowsketeers.

• We have a lot of woodpeckers around here....how about a planking of peckers?
• We also have Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal, who are living in our weigela bushes in the back yard: a crew of cardinals
• And let's not forget the groundhogs who live under one of the pine trees out back: a gathering of groundhogs (although I did read that a collective of groundhogs is called a repetition, but I don't know how true that is). I like gathering better.

They sound good, I guess.

 

[jcat]

We have an array of hedgehogs and a host of sparrows in the backyard.