What Is a Group of Crows Called? A Murder of Crows Explained

Where does “a murder of crows” come from?

In late medieval England, writers compiled lists of special group names called terms of venery, many of them linked to hunting and courtly manners. The best-known source is The Book of Saint Albans, printed in 1486, which mixes real hunting terms with playful inventions such as “a superfluity of nuns” and “a pride of lions.” Similar lists in manuscripts from earlier in the 15th century include a “murder” of crows.

Nobody knows exactly who first used the phrase or why. The most likely explanation is the crow’s grim reputation. Crows and ravens fed on carrion, gathered on battlefields and around gallows, and were treated as omens of death in much European folklore. Calling a flock of them a murder was a darkly witty way to capture that image.

Dictionary makers note that most of these terms fell out of use after the 16th century and were never common in ordinary speech. Many were revived in the 20th century by books such as James Lipton’s An Exaltation of Larks (1968), and “a murder of crows” became one of the most famous of all.

Why are crows linked with death?

The dark reputation behind the name has practical roots. Crows and ravens are scavengers, and before modern sanitation they fed on whatever people left behind, including the bodies of animals and, after battles or executions, of people. Their all-black plumage and harsh voices added to the gloomy image.

Folklore built on this. In parts of Britain and Europe, a crow landing on a house or calling near a sickbed was said to foretell a death, and a lone crow was often thought unlucky. Yet the picture was never entirely negative. In Norse mythology, the god Odin had two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, “thought” and “memory,” who flew over the world and brought him news, and many Indigenous peoples of North America tell stories of Crow or Raven as a clever trickster and creator.

Modern science has turned the old image upside down: crows are now best known for their intelligence, strong family bonds and memory for faces.

The crow parliament legend

A popular story says crows hold “trials” in which a group gathers around one bird and then kills it. This idea appears in folklore, but there is no scientific evidence for crow courts. What people may have seen are crows mobbing a predator, chasing away an intruding crow from a territory, or gathering noisily around a dead crow.

Scientists have studied that last behavior and think it is a way of learning about danger. Read more in Do crows hold funerals?

Group names for ravens and other corvids

Crows are not the only corvids with colorful collective nouns:

The common raven earned “unkindness” in the same medieval lists, perhaps from an old belief that ravens were cruel to their young. In fact, raven parents feed and guard their chicks devotedly for months.

Collective nouns for other birds

Some of the best-known bird group names are a murmuration of starlings, an exaltation of larks, a charm of goldfinches, a parliament of owls and a gaggle of geese on the ground, which become a skein in flight. A few, such as a gaggle, are still in everyday use, while most survive mainly in quizzes. For many more examples across the animal kingdom, see our list of animal group names.

How crows really gather

Real crow society is more interesting than the folklore. American crows live in family groups: a breeding pair plus grown offspring from earlier years that stay to help raise new chicks. A family may number from three or four to as many as 15 birds.

Outside the breeding season, crows also form larger foraging flocks that roam fields, lawns and landfills. Young birds without territories join wandering flocks of up to about 50 birds. When a hawk or owl appears, crows from several families may join forces to mob it, diving and cawing until it leaves.

Winter roosts: the biggest gatherings

The most spectacular crow gatherings happen from fall to late winter, when crows from a wide area fly in at dusk to sleep together at a communal roost. These can hold thousands of birds, and some North American roosts have held tens of thousands. Crows gather in staging areas before flying to the final roost at nightfall, and they leave again at dawn.

Roosting together probably offers safety from great horned owls, warmth and a chance to share information about food. See Why do crows gather in huge flocks? for the full story.