27OCT07 – So you’re writing a novel and have a bunch of seagulls hanging out. Well a ‘bunch,’ is reserved for bananas and a group doesn’t apply. Damnit! You know there’s special names for groups of whales: Pods. But how about for everything else? Well hold on to your seats, fellow geeks. Some really bored English Majors got together around the birth of the Modern English Language and gave lots of names to lots of groups or bunches when asked, ‘what do you call a group of….’ You’ll do well to know in advance that these groups are actually called, Collective Names or Collective Nouns meaning simply what you’re looking for, Group Names.

Dave Fellows tells us not only Bird Collectives but some Mammal and Insect Collectives, here.

CoolQuiz.com has a nice, long, inter-mixed list of Collectives here.

Patrick, from Patrick Communications has a two-page PDF that’s ready to print including the elusive Collective answering what you call a group of Zebras, here.

If you’re lazy to click links, here’s a few group names that appear on each of the above list:

A Muster or Orientation is what you call a group of Peacocks (Dinarius is next to a bird Sanctuary and this whole article came about when trying to correctly caption the following picture)…

A Farrow is what you call a group of cute little Piglets.
What do you call a group of sparrows? The Collective Name for Sparrows is a Host of sparrows.
A group of Mules can be a Barren or a Span.
What do you call a group of ducks? That depends on their actions. Ducks are called a Team when just floating, a Paddling when swimming together or a Brace.
What do you call a group of Turtle Doves when the Dove Collective is a Dule? A Pitying is reserved just for Turtle Dove doves.
The most popular question on the Internet concerning Collectives? What do you call a group of CROWS? Thanks to their dark nature probably, we call a group of crows, a Murder.
Thanks to this article, people now want to know most of all, what do you call a group of peacocks? The female peacocks are called peahens.
While not normally musical or that keen on being collected, to be proper, you would refer to a group of prostitutes as an anthology!

From the, “ASK DINARIUS” Button: A group of turtles is called a bale of turtles.