Murmuration

Murmuration (pronounced mur-muh-rey-shuhn)

(1) An act or instance of murmuring.

(2) In ornithological use, the correct collective name for a flock of starlings although sometimes (controversially according to the ornithologists) extended to bees.

(3) In sociology and zoology, an emergent order in a multi-agent social system.

1350–1400: A Middle English borrowing from the Old French murmure (which endures in modern French) from the Medieval Latin murmurātiōn (stem of murmurātiō), derived from the Latin murmur (humming, muttering, roaring, growling, rushing etc).  The wealth of words related to murmur includes rumble, buzz, hum, whisper, muttering, purr, undertone, babble, grumble, mutter, susurration, drone, whispering, humming, mumble, rumor, buzzing and susurrus.

Murmuration of starlings above the Negev desert, near Rahat, Israel, February 2018.

The adoption of murmuration as the collective noun for starlings is thought derived from the sound of the very large groups that starlings form at dusk.  The ornithologists did not approve of the apiarists borrowing the word to describe bees, maintaining bees exist in a swarm, drift, erst or grist.  There are however no rules for this and an alternative collective noun for starlings is a chattering and this is applied also to chicks, choughs and goldfinches.