Puffins, Pufflings, and Collective Nouns

PHOTO CREDIT: J. SMALL

Puffins!

One cool thing we did on vacation in Maine is take a puffin tour. Puffins!! Those cute little black birds with the rainbow beaks that fly like bumblebees. Our Hardy Cruise Ship left from New Harbor for Egg Island on a perfect, sunny afternoon with the most enthusiastic Audubon bird guide ever to hit the Atlantic Ocean. Also present was a bevy of self-professed “bird nerds” whose excitement over each species we encountered was infectious. 

We learned puffins are very social birds, and they float on the sea in groups called “rafts.” In the air, puffin packs are called a “whirl.” According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service[i], groups of puffins on land can be called a “colony,” a “burrow,” a “circus,” a “puffinry,” or an “improbability.” And the babies are called “pufflings.” The words are as adorable as the birds themselves. 

Lots of other birds inhabit Egg Island, so we had lessons about gulls, cormorants, common terns, and black guillemots. Learning the collective noun rafts for a group of floating puffins made me curious about the collective nouns—nouns that refer to groups—for other things as well as the other birds spotted on our tour, which our “bird nerds” joyfully provided.

Collectives for the Day’s Sightings

A group of gulls is called a “squabble,” which perfectly matches all the noise they make, especially the laughing gulls. No matter what, they sound like they have a bone to pick with each other and you. Hand over those chips.

Cormorant groups are called “flights.” Yes, they fly, but surface dives and spreading their wings like Batman to dry distinguish cormorants from other birds, so flight seems a bit ironic.

Common sea terns group together in “colonies.” This is very appropriate, as they appeared to colonize in the air, on the sea, and among the rocks on the island regardless of who was already there.

I love the term a “bazaar of guillemots.” While we rarely spotted them in more than pairs, I picture lots of guillemots under colorful tents, bartering for goods. The other collective noun for them is “loomery.” The immediate image that springs to mind is birds in a sweatshop, weaving organic-colored sarapes.

Human Collective Nouns

Our nature as humans is to group, and, therefore, many collective nouns describe us when we gather in great numbers.  

Take “flock,” for example. It’s not just for birds and sheep. Many a minister refers to their congregation (another collective noun itself) as their flock (akin to biblical sheep). You can have a flock of tourists, a flock of students on spring break, a flock of children playing. A flock can be most any crowd, usually united for/in/by a cause.

In my first paragraph, I use the collective noun “bevy” to refer to our trip’s bird nerds. What a charming reference to a group: bevy. The soft B and V sounds conjure a pleasant gathering, and, indeed, these folks were. Questions the Audubon expert could not answer, one of them could with almost unparalleled delight.

“Mob” is another word for a human crowd, but a this crowd usually has a sinister or violent purpose. However, mobs are also groups of kangaroos, which are normally quite placid creatures (until they think you are holding out food on them). As high as kangaroos can jump, they won’t leap over a fence alone; they leap as a mob or not at all. They define the mob mentality that human mobs can often present—when one goes, the rest follow.

Frank Sinatra’s pals called themselves “The Rat Pack.” Imagine if they used one of the myriad other human collective nouns: “The Rat Posse,” “The Rat Gang,” “The Rat Squad,” “The Rat Troupe,” “The Rat Company,” “The Rat Tribe,” “The Rat Clan,” etc. Confess: you’re conjuring images with each new collective noun! 

Books

One of my father’s favorite novels was Band of Brothers. It is based on the lives and stories of the members of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division during WWII. The title is based on Henry’s St. Crispian’s Day battle speech from Act III, scene iv of Shakespeare’s Henry V: “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

Look up The Hive and dozens of books by different authors will pop up, some bestsellers and some looking to make somebody’s list someday. Several are actually about bees.

“Confederacy” means a league or an alliance which is usually formed for illegal purposes. Lots of historical fiction and nonfiction books boast the word in their titles. For fiction, check out A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, which was based on Irishman Jonathan Swift’s essay, “Thoughts on Various Subjects.”

A “cozy” British mystery series by Sarah Yarwood-Lovett works with collective nouns in the titles: A Murder of Crows, A Cast of Falcons, A Mischief of Rats, A Generation of Vipers, A Trace of Hares, and A Swarm of Butterflies. I’m hoping she takes to the sea to write A Raft of Puffins someday. 

And if you are doing research, there are multiple titles and websites about collective nouns. A favorite book is by the late actor, writer, and Inside the Actors Studio host, James Lipton, called An Exultation of Larks. It’s a fascinating and often entertaining look at the history of words assigned to groups of animals, people, objects, and places. It’s a great reference!

Everyday Collective Nouns

We use collective nouns without even thinking about them: house, class, deck, set, bundle, suite, etc. When we come across a unique one, we sit up and notice—or wonder whence it came! Spice up your writing with collective nouns, you worship of writers, you.

[i] Hupp, Lisa. “Puzzling about puffins.” U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. June 30, 2022. Accessed July 14, 2024. https://www.fws.gov/story/2022-06/puzzling-about-puffins.