A Charm of Goldfinches and Other Collective Nouns by Matt Sewell

Author:Matt Sewell
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473529847
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

A Charm of

Goldfinches

T INKLING LIKE THE TRINKET charms on a ladies’ bracelet it is easy to identify a flock of goldfinches in the winter as they gather in multitude: a merry band of red-faced, golden birds alighting in the treetops, singing, playing and doing whatever finches do to keep warm. So utterly charming, they have certainly cast a spell over me.

A Skein of

Geese

WHEN GEESE are padding about on webbed feet or chasing you for scraps of bread they are known as a gaggle, which although quite obvious and sweet is also quite apt. More impressively, though, when they are sighted high in the autumn sky, they soar onwards in the wavering wedge of a skein – a collective noun which comes from an old French word for ‘V formation’. It really is an uplifting spectacle and awesome to think these birds fly like this for hundreds of miles above rough seas; as an example, the barnacle geese who winter in the UK are from Svalbard and Greenland: that’s quite a return trip! Before the magic of migration was understood, nobody had seen the geese in Britain breed, so it was believed they flew inland from where they had been born at sea as barnacles floating on deadwood. Hence the name ‘barnacle goose’. Brilliant, eh?

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