Last of the name series

Today we finish our series about animal and bird names, with more group names.

Remember, these may not be technically correct in all cases, but they are fair game for outdoor writers. Example: One day, while driving around the Potholes State Park general area in search of deer, not an animal could be spotted. My sister’s grandson was beside me.

Suddenly he perks up and pointed. “There’s a deer, I see a deer,” he said.

“Where, there is no deer out there,” was my reply.

“Yes, there is, it’s a John Deere,” he said.

It was apparent, right then and there, this young man would make a good outdoors writer.

A group of elk is called a herd, but sometimes a group of bulls is called a gang.

“There is a gang of elk in my orchard,” meaning a group of bulls is in the orchard and most likely causing damage. Bull elk cause hundreds of dollars’ worth of damage to Washington orchards every year, but cow elk cause damage, too.

A group of fish is a school. A group of whales is called a pod. A group of porcupines is called a prickle. A female porcupine is called a sow and a male a bore. The young are pups.

My Dad told me to never kill a porcupine. Why? Because these animals are slow moving. A porcupine would make an easy catch and meal, if a person was lost in the mountains.

However, times have changed. A friend who lives in the Davenport area instructed me to shoot every porky seen.

“See the dead tree over there and the one over then?” he said pointing. “A porcupine has girdled the trees and killed them.”

Girdling is the removal of a strip of bark from the entire circumference of a tree. The porky girdled the trees for food, which killed each tree above the damage.

Deer hunting alone one fall found me near an old apple tree. What’s more, a slight hill put me eye-to-eye with the middle branches of the tree.

A sound of crunch, crunch, crunch came to me from my left. Then a similar crunch, crunch, crunch came from the right. A bit of exploring found two porcupines in the tree eating apples. No, couldn’t hurt these two.

Ducks are called a team or a flock in flight and a raft on the water. A group of coots is called a cover. A group of finches is called a charm, while a group of flamingos is called a stand. No surprise with the flamingos.

Tomorrow: We explore news from the shooting industry.