A Giggle of Geese

Our foreparents had a gay old time coining collective nouns: a gaggle of geese, a spring of teal, a wisp of snipe, a bevy of quail and so on. I thought it was time we brought the collection up to date, so here is my second offering for your delectation and, if I am lucky, your groans.

an alphabet of jays, a tangle of knot, a gargery of larks, a coven of merlins, a berkeley of nightingales, a chamber of nightjars, a suite of nutcrackers, a futility of nuthatch, a college of orioles, an evasion of ostrich, an ouch of owls, a library of pelicans, a tank of petrel, a phlock of phalarope, a pluck of pheasant, a stool of pigeons, a pteam of ptarmigan, a gasp of puffin, a rant of rail, a slash of razorbills, a blush of redstart, a pleasure of shags, an elevation of stilts, a delivery of storks, a lurk of wallcreepers, a design of wrens.