A Murder of Crows.
Used in a sentence: "Apparently, the collective noun for a group of the well known black birds is a murder of crows."
Having just caught up with some of those PBS documentaries that I watch to balance out my reality TV addictions, I finally saw the recent Nature special called A Murder of Crows. I was expecting to hear about violence committed against those animals, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was about experiments done with these birds that apparently are in possession of great intelligence. I recommend the show if you can catch it, and except for some odd segments about whether the local murder members recognize people walking around campus in a mask, the part about how they've short circuited public transportation in Japan because they started nesting with wire hangers (that they can bend to their body size) is kind of amazing.
Apparently, they have nothing on a clamor of rooks, or an unkindness of ravens or a charm of hummingbirds (all other actual animal collective nouns).
COLLECTIVE NOUNS FOR ANIMAL GROUPS:
http://www.rinkworks.com/words/collective.shtml
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND ON PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/a-murder-of-crows/full-episode/5977/
TOKYO's DECLARED WAR:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/27/murder_of_crows/
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