Nature 101, Collective nouns for birds

I have always enjoyed collective nouns as their group names are sometimes very descriptive.  For example, when we first moved to our present home we used to have large groups of noisy Grackles arrive at our home's location  in the spring and perch in out two old Maples trees.  If you're familiar with a Grackle's sound, ? we always described it as a noisy squeaky, rusty gate.  I was slightly embarrassed of the noise and as we fed birds, I was a bit worried that the neighbours would be a bit annoyed at us, for perhaps enticing such a loud , noisy group to our neighbourhood.  Thus, I laughed today when I looked up the collective noun for a group of Grackles and discovered that Yes!   a group of Grackles are described as an annoyance or a plague of Grackles!

The next large group of birds I had found recently were Waxwings. There are two choices for their collective naming.  The first mentioned was an Ear-full of Waxwings. Yes that fits as I remember their sound being that of singing wires  with a slightly high pitch, so that kind of fits for me., The second choice which I have chosen to use here is a Museum of Waxwings.. I can't come up with a reason for this naming but I think it is rather interesting and unique.

My next collective noun applies to a small group of ducks of perhaps only two or three pair.  In this picture of a brace of ducks there was one pair of Mallards that I could see and perhaps a couple of pairs of Black ducks. So the pictures below include a brace of ducks.

 My last example today of a collective noun for a group of birds are Red-winged Blaclbirds.  This species of birds have been a bit elusive for me to find this spring , so this morning when I glimpsed a bit of yellow and red on one of the blackbirds wing. I was very happy about my find.  Collectively this group can be called a Cluster or a Cloud of Red-winged Blackbirds.

Thus, the lesson is Ended!