Introduction WE DO LOVE to put labels on things, don't we? Everything from the slightest variation of tone in a color to the taste of a single flavor in a dish, right through to the tiniest variation in the beats of a song--they all mark a difference and, no matter how small, every variation has a name. This necessity to name is never more evident than in nature. Most groups of wildlife can be described as a flock, herd, or shoal--but where is the fun in ending there? We as humans are romantic poets at heart, who delight in the idiosyncrasies of the natural world, so a simple "flock" is never going to be enough of a description for one group of birds to the next. Thus we examine and embellish and, over time, these observations make their way into common usage as quirky and colorful collective nouns. A lot of the phrases used in this book are hundreds of years old-- maybe even older. The earliest written record of such menageries is from the fifteenth century in The Book of Saint Albans (or The Boke of Seynt Albans ) by Englishman Julyan Berners. It's a somewhat snooty book about gentlemanly pursuits of the time, mainly hunting and hawking, so a lot of the nouns are explicitly to do with the animals' characteristics and their cunning, be they predator or prey. Many are humorous and right on the money, but also quite odd, with antiquated turns of phrase.

They are certainly a lot more fun to use than the more modern, perhaps clichéd, descriptive terms. In addition to the delight of the outright weirdness, there is a lovely bit of one-upmanship that goes hand in hand with knowing your collective nouns. Although . you could always just make up your own versions and nobody would even know. Is that a deceit of lapwings, anybody?.