A murmuration of ...........

[Rhyd6]

A quick search comes up with starlings but this morning I spent a good half hour being mesmerised by finches doing exactly the same thing. I was a joy to behold and I just sat and watched (one of the plusses of covid is that there isn't anywhere to rush off to). I can find a charm of finches, a trembling of finches but nothing that describes them flying en masse in a manner similar to starlings so is it or isn't it a murmuration?

R6

[Pipsmum]

A charm.... more than likely.

The best one I found when researching a similar thing, was for gnomes. It is a shortage of gnomes!!!

Starlings can be a few:- a chattering, a cloud, a congregation, a murmuration or a clattering.

[kiloran]

At Kiloran Castle, it would be described as ...... a couple of finches. Plenty of starlings, pigeons, sparrows, but only two goldfinches finches. And they've disappeared over the past few days

--kiloran

[Rhyd6]

There must have been about 200 finches flying together in a group, before I put my glasses on I thought they were starlings but then I realised that they were too small. They seemed to settle in a tree for a few moments then were out swooping and diving all in a group then settle once more and off again.
It was fascinating to watch. It's annoying when you think that there must be a correct word for something but can't find it. I shall keep on searching.

R6

[kempiejon]

were out swooping and diving all in a group then settle once more and off again. It's annoying when you think that there must be a correct word for something but can't find it. I shall keep on searching.

To murmurate?

[GrahamPlatt]

It's annoying when you think that there must be a correct word for something but can't find it. I shall keep on searching.
R6

That’d be a Rummage of Rhyds then.

[madhatter]

They seemed to settle in a tree for a few moments then were out swooping and diving all in a group then settle once more and off again.

Long tailed Tits do that as well, though I haven't seen the sort of numbers you mentioned. Goldfinches can form sizeable groups, though I have not seen more than a dozen or so in my garden.

Very different calls though. The Goldfinch has a tinkling sound whereas the Long Tailed Tits will do high pitched "si-si-si..." and often a "sirrrrut" sound with a rolling "r".

[Rhyd6]

Hi madhatter, definitely not goldfinches or long tailed tits. They were quite a drab colour so were probably chaffinches. They've been at it again today and suprisingly a reasonably sized murmuration of starlings were showing off as well. They seemed to take it in turns to perform as though they were trying to outdo each other.

R6

[madhatter]

They were quite a drab colour so were probably chaffinches.

According to the excellent (and reasonably priced) RSPB Handbook of British Birds (also available as an e-book which includes many songs and calls, big bugger to download though) Chaffinches, outside the breeding season will often form large flocks which can include other finches, buntings and sparrows, are large single sex flocks is the winter.

So you may well be right.

Annoyingly however, it doesn’t provide the collective name for them.

[kempiejon]

The Chaffinch is the most common finch in western Europe. ... A group of finches has many collective nouns, including a "charm", "company", and "trembling" of finches.

[PinkDalek]

The Chaffinch is the most common finch in western Europe. ... A group of finches has many collective nouns, including a "charm", "company", and "trembling" of finches.

Yes but the OP was talking about in flight.

[Gengulphus]

The Chaffinch is the most common finch in western Europe. ... A group of finches has many collective nouns, including a "charm", "company", and "trembling" of finches.

Yes but the OP was talking about in flight.

Yes, and https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictio ... urmuration defines a murmuration as "a large group of birds, usually starlings, that all fly together and change direction together, or the act of birds doing this". So according to that source, (a) what the starlings are doing in a murmuration is part of what makes it a murmuration; (b) a murmuration is therefore not a general collective noun for starlings, e.g. a flock of starlings on the ground is not a murmuration; (c) the "usually starlings" implies that one can have murmurations of other species of bird - they don't form a murmuration as often, but they can do so.

However, most other sources I've found on the web do just define a murmuration as a flock of starlings, or as a collective term for starlings - though https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/murmuration does say the etymology is probably from the sound a murmuration makes, which of course is a specific feature of the large flock flying in a co-ordinated way. It may well be that it's a term whose original definition is changing, quite possibly partly driven by the pressure towards simpler English - "a flock of starlings" is quite a bit shorter and simpler than the Cambridge dictionary definition I've quoted above... (I'd like to check my old printed dictionaries to see whether they give any extra clues about whether that's the case, but I'm away from them at present and for quite a long time to come.)

But faced with Rhyd6's issue, I would feel happy describing what he or she saw as a "murmuration of finches", since it succinctly brings out the main features of the way they were behaving and I would have a reputable source to back me up on the use of the term.

Gengulphus

[Rhyd6]

Thank you Gengulphus, your explanation makes sense to me, it was the collective noun for the chaffinches in flight that I was looking for and you seemed to have nailed it.

R6

[kempiejon]

Knot murmurate in Norfolk
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-englan ... k-54606736

[Gengulphus]

A more extended version of the same story:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-54592215

I reckon they should have makers of hard-to-impossible jigsaw puzzles queuing up for rights to some of the pictures!

Gengulphus