My Favorite Things

By Nick Kotula, JRA Guest Contributor

Herons and ospreys and raging white rivers,
big geese and small hawks set my heart aquiver.
Green-headed mallards that swim through the streams,
these are a few of my favorite things.

 Another one of my favorite things (besides butchering classic musicals) is a very specific word. I’m talking words that you use when you want to sound like you really know what you’re talking about. Ornithology (the study of birds) is chock full of them!

When you’re at the heronry, what are you looking at? Is it a group of herons? Yes, but that’s too generic. Is it a flock of herons? Again, think more specific. A group of herons is a siege. Downtown Richmond is “besieged” by herons!



A gulp of cormorants in the James River.

Turns out that pretty much every bird that hangs out near Vauxhall Island has a name. Those black duck-like birds that have started popping up all over the river are cormorants. When they get together it’s called a gulp (#4). It’s fun watching them swim through the river with their heads held high. I almost immediately mistake them for snakes at first.

A group of Canada geese? In general they are a flock, if they’re flying they are a skein, and if they’re on the ground spreading their carbon-nitrogen-phosphorous “love” on every flat surface, they can be called a gaggle, a herd, or a corps, depending on your mood. I personally call them a “nuisance” of geese, but that doesn’t seem to be a generally accepted term.