Dr. Language Guy here.
It has come to my attention that many of you face a grammatical dilemma when encountering strange wildlife in your own backyard. Now I know that, if you sight wolves, deer or locusts, you will immediately call out “There is a pack of wolves or a herd of deer or a plague of locusts in my backyard!” Packs are common to a number of creatures – wolves, hounds and other dogs – as are herds – asses, buffalo, deer, elephants, giraffes, moose and zebras. Plagues only apply to locusts and politicians.
But what do you say if, for examples, you encounter baboons, sheldrake or wombats? Never fear. Thanks to the Book of Saint Albans of 1486 entitled Companys of Beestys and Fowlys, aided by Wikipedia and abcteach, you will correctly and properly identify any group of animals that cross your path. The animals will respect you for this attention to detail.
A Troop of Baboons
A Sedge of Bitterns
A Sounding of Boars
A Drove of Bullocks
A Tok of Capercaillie
A Quiver of Cobras
A Covert of Coots
A Bask of Crocodiles
A Murder of Crows
A Trip of Dotterel
A Fling of Dunlins
A Mob of Emus
A Fesnyng of Ferrets
A Bloat of Hippopotamuses
A Clattering of Jackdaws
A Deceit of Lapwings
An Ascension of Larks
A Plump of Moorhens
A Pod of Pelicans
An Ostentation of Peacocks
A Congregation of Plovers
A Rhumba of Rattlesnakes
A Crash of Rhinoceros
A Dopping of Sheldrake
A Walk of Snipes
A Pitying of Turtle Doves
A Wisdom of Wombats
A WTF? of Weird Wildlife
We should start applying such terms to groups of people as well:
A Brace of Bloggers
A Klump of Kardashians
A Really Good Deal of Used Car Salesmen.
Do you have any suggestions?
Curmudgeon at Large 
In keeping with the present day “election year syndrome” : a leach of liberals and a constipation of conservatives.
I may have been leached by liberals but have never thought of being constipated with conservatives. Now that thought cannot be undone.
A cartouche of curmudgeons…
Very appropriate
The worst is when I call 911 and scream, ‘My wife is being attacked by a pack of baboons!’ and the operator answers, ‘I think you mean a troop of baboons.’
It is just at such moments that you wish you had your copy of Beestys and Fowlys at hand.
Relative to followers of the Donald:
A clump
of
Trumpians
No, no. I got it wrong. It must be “A Chump of Trumpians”.
Aside from Carloads and Curses, you must have covered everything. There were a number I’d never heard of and probably won’t remember.
The writers of the book of St. Albans had a lot a time on their hands.
A murder of crows is my all time favorite. So precise and so perfect. I will never understand why a……group….. of such beautiful birds makes me shudder. It must be because they are a “murder”.
Edgar Allan Poe would agree.
Please can it be a camera shy klump of kardashians?
That would be Kamera-shy Kardashians, a non-existent breed.
Hahaha! I think my favourite is “fling of dunlins”. You can never trust them. They’ll fling thrmselves into anything. 🙂
True. I suspect that in the 15th century, the dunlins flung themselves into hunters.
How about a Carload of Curmudgeons. That could make for a very interesting trip!
I was thinking of a Curse of Curmudgeons.
That’s probably better. 🙂
A Cavil of Curmudgeons…? And thank you for making me look up ‘capercaillie’ – I thought myself a birder, but I’d never heard of that one!
Maybe a Cauldron of Curmudgeons?