What birds (are you/have you been) watching? What birds have been watching you?

[Padraig]

... and the collective noun for goldfinches is of course ....

An Adore.

[vinteuil]

... and the collective noun for goldfinches is of course ....

... here's a charming one -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYrvOQiCx4I

.

[LMcD]

... here's a [B[/B]charming one -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYrvOQiCx4I

.

[LezLee]

A contrast to the goldfinches, there are 8 great blackbacked gulls wheeling around above the road outside my house. Can't see what might be attracting them. A bit scary.

[Padraig]

there are 8 great blackbacked gulls wheeling around. A bit scary.

That would be a scavenge. Watch out!

[Pulcinella]

That would be a scavenge. Watch out!

Is that the right collective noun, I wonder.
If not, it should be!

[Serial_Apologist]

Is that the right collective noun, I wonder.
If not, it should be!

A hitchcock?

[Padraig]

Is that the right collective noun, I wonder.
If not, it should be!

Thank you Pulcinella. Now, what did you think of 'an adore of goldfinches'? (Nudge)

[Pulcinella]

Thank you Pulcinella. Now, what did you think of 'an adore of goldfinches'? (Nudge)

Very witty (and I'm sure that our charmer LMcD will have got the 'gold = or' connection).
I was trying to think of something with the chemical Au symbol in, but didn't get very far: an audibility, given its song, perhaps?

[LezLee]

Google says:

Gulls - A colony, flotilla, pack, scavenging, screech, squabble
Don't know what yellowlegs is/are but they're called 'an incontinence' !

[Pulcinella]

Google says:

Gulls - A colony, flotilla, pack, scavenging, screech, squabble
Don't know what yellowlegs is/are but they're called 'an incontinence' !

So Padraig was pretty close with his scavenge then.

[Padraig]

I was trying to think of something with the chemical Au symbol in, but didn't get very far: an audibility, given its song, perhaps?

A beauty of goldfinches?

Sorry about the poor unfortunate yellowlegs.

[LezLee]

It's a charm of goldfinches. I'm probably alone in this but I don't find their faces very pretty, though all their colours are lovely. Bullfinches are my favourite.

[LMcD]

It's a charm of goldfinches. I'm probably alone in this but I don't find their faces very pretty, though all their colours are lovely. Bullfinches are my favourite.

(See #2163 )

[ardcarp]

I've been watching a flock of (probably frustrated) house martins as they land repeatedly on a dark patch of ground in the belief or hope that it's mud. The lack of rainfall - past and forecast - in this part of the world makes it very likely that mud will continue to be in short supply, to put it mildly.

Just got back from (a rather naughtily extended) couple of days in Cornwall, and in two villages there was intense house-martin activity (swooping up and down from eaves, etc). So Cornwall is probably wetter than here on the Devon south coast, where house-martin numbers seem to be down this year. As are swallows. Sand martins doing OK though on nearby river bank.