You’ve now reached Installment #30 from my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals. We’re not even close to the end! See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.
- The fixture fixed itself firmly to the fixture.
- The boil boiled in the sky, falling fast towards the earth.
- A bevy of bevies is one fleet fleet.
- The trip tripped along the shore line. (1)
- The consortium consorted, while the moggies kept to themselves. (2)
- This devil has imps!
Answers:
- Fixture of barnacles [1]
- Boil of hawks [2]
- Bevy of deer [3]
- Trip of dotterel [4]
- Consortium of crabs
- Tasmanian devil babies [5]
NOTES: [1] I completely forgot about barnacles. Marilyn Albright over at alaskamexicoandbeyond.wordpress.com/ alerted me to this one. Thanks, Marilyn! [2] A boil specifically designates two or more hawks spiraling in flight (3). [3] Bevy refers to roe deer only. sciencebasedlife.wordpress.com/ [4] I had to look it up. A dotterel is a plover, related to sandpipers (1). [5] Tasmanian devils are solitary and fierce: there is no term for a group of Tasmanian devils. But devil babies are called imps, which more than qualified them for my lists. The devil is endangered. greentumble.com
NOTES on NOTES: (1) Someone stop me! I can’t resist. A dotterel is also a slang term in Britain for someone easily duped. www.yourdictionary.com (2) I couldn’t resist this fact either. Yet another definition for cats! I have to sneak in moggy: “Moggy (also moggie) is used in Scottish and English dialects in senses that are colloquial or rare or obsolete, e.g., “a young girl or young woman”; “a scarecrow”; “a calf or cow.” Perhaps its only common use is as a term for an ordinary house cat. Moggy may possibly be a derivative of Mog, a nickname for Margaret. Moggy in its sense “girl, young woman” entered English in the 17th century; in its sense “calf or cow,” in the 19th century; in its sense “scarecrow,” in the late 19th century; and in its sense “house cat,” in the early 20th century.” wordoftheday Go to my earlier posts for more on cats: The Animal Kingdom: A Clowder and Installments 19 and 22. (3) Let’s repeat NOTE #3 again: A boil specifically designates two or more hawks spiraling in flight. Two or MORE? Seriously? © Jadi Campbell 2017. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de. Fun animal names from www.writers-free-reference.com, Mother Nature Network and www.reference.com.
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This is a brand new feature for this blog: I’m transcribing selected entries from my old travel journals. Currently I’m working on a batch of new posts set in Laos. I hauled out the journal I kept on our first visit to make sure that my memories match up with the facts. My descriptions from that trip are raw. I use a travel diary to record first impressions and get down the details to go over later (like now, years later). I’ve decided to post some of them here for your amusement. — Jadi
A 1,000-year-old site we visited with our guide on yesterday’s tour:
Buddhas in the Angkor Wat style carved out of boulders in the jungle. And, not twenty feet away, a spirit altar by a tall tree. [1]
No one’s allowed to build anything on or near the site. But the locals come there for ceremonies and celebrations. It had a rather hushed and holy air as we stood on the jungle (forest) floor in the welter of the afternoon heat at Vang Sang. An elephant graveyard was once found nearby!
The buildings all high on stilts for the rainy times. We had my favorite meal so far in this trip: a soup with fresh Chinese vegetables and tofu and vermicelli noodles – it may be the freshest ingredients in a soup of this kind I can remember. And a lake fish grilled whole with garlic and ginger and lemon grass and cilantro; and it was all just too delicious for words.
Yet another addition to my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals! … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.
