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A Radiance of Cardinals

From the N. Y. Times

That is a radiance of Cardinals.  

The collective name for a bird cardinal is a radiance of cardinals.  
In the Church, they are also known as a college of cardinals, or a conclave.
Red birds.  

James Lipton published a book titled, An Exaltation of Larks, in which he reveals that an aspiring gentleman in the fifteenth century had to try to learn about five hundred such whimsical names for groups of critters.  (I could not find my copy, so I turned to Wikipedia for a few samples:


a congregation of alligators
a bench of bishops
a rabble (or a flight) of butterflies
a wake of buzzards
a clutter (or a glaring, or a pounce) of cats
a destruction of wild cats
a clutch of chickens
a murder of crows
a waddling of ducks
a convocation of eagles
a busyness, or business, of ferrets
a skulk of foxes
a wedge of geese
a tower of giraffes
a rabble of gnats
a charm of goldfinches
a rasp of guineafowl
a siege of herons
a bloat of hippopotamuses
a cry of hounds
a scold of jays
an exaltation of larks
a leap of leopards
a pride of lions
a mischief of mice
a wilderness of monkeys
a scourge of mosquitoes
a parliament of owls
a pandemonium of parrots
an ostentation of peacocks
a bouquet of pheasants
a bevy of quail
a run of salmon 
a scurry of squirrels
a clattering of starlings
a drift of swine
an ambush of tigers
a raft of waterfowl
                                                              

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