What Is a Group of Magpies Called? (A Tidings)

This page is about the Eurasian Magpie, the magpie of Britain and Europe, with a section on Australia at the end. For the bird itself, see the Magpie guide; for the counting rhyme, see One for sorrow.

The traditional term is a tidings of magpies (sometimes "a tiding"). It is the only name for a group of magpies found in the medieval lists of "proper terms", where it first appears in a manuscript of about 1452 and then in the Book of St Albans of 1486.^{1, 2} In everyday English, and to birdwatchers, a group of magpies is simply a flock.³

The other names you will see online, such as a parliament, a mischief or a gulp of magpies, appear in no old list. Some belong to other birds in the medieval lists, and the rest are modern inventions (see the table below).

In the 15th century, English gentlemen were expected to know the "proper terms" for groups of animals and people, and lists of them were copied into manuscripts and printed books. The magpie's entry is in eight of them. The earliest is a manuscript in the British Library, Egerton MS 1995, of about 1452, which gives "A Tydynge of Pyys" (pie was the old word for a magpie). The Porkington manuscript has "a Tythingys of pyis", and the Book of St Albans, printed in 1486, has "a Titengis of Pies". Later printings bent the word out of shape: "a Tygendis of pyes" in 1496, and "a tygenes of Pyes" by 1586 and 1614.²

Not every list has it. The list printed by William Caxton after John Lydgate's poem The Horse, the Sheep and the Goose, around 1477, has no magpie at all, though it does have "a Murther of crowes".⁴

Ravens have their own medieval term in the same lists: see why a group of ravens is called an unkindness.

The word is the ordinary English "tidings", meaning news. That was the reading of John Hodgkin, who compared the lists in 1909: he tied it to the old superstition that the number of magpies you see tells you what is coming.² Earlier writers took it more plainly. Stephen Skinner, in 1671, read it as a flock², and Halliwell's dictionary of old words gives "tithing" as "a company of magpies".⁵

Magpies were linked with news for centuries. Reginald Scot, in 1584, dismissed the belief that chattering magpies foretold guests as "vanitie and superstition".⁶ An old saying recorded by John Brand was that "when the Pye chatters we shall have Strangers".⁷ And in Francis Grose's 1787 version of the counting superstition, four magpies meant "an unexpected piece of good news".⁸ The counting rhyme itself is on One for sorrow.

None of the names below appears for magpies in the medieval lists. A parliament is used for no bird in those lists, and when it is used for magpies it is a figure of speech. A charm belonged to goldfinches, a congregation to plovers and a murder to crows.^{1, 4} The earliest use of a tittering of magpies we found is from 1961, and a mischief, a gulp and a conventicle only from 2007 onwards, in word books and online lists.

Even the medieval terms are doubtful as real usage. The Macquarie Dictionary calls them "clearly fanciful" and doubts that hunters ever used them, noting that a group of birds is ordinarily a flock.⁹

For most of the year magpies live in pairs. Breeding pairs stay together all year, even when they join a flock¹⁰, and in a Cotswolds study they defended their territories throughout the year.¹¹ The flocks are mostly younger birds without a territory: in one colour-marked population about 40% of magpies were non-breeders, most of which spent the winter in a flock.¹² Inside the flock there is a pecking order, and the lower-ranking birds are less likely to survive and breed.¹³

Magpies also gather to sleep. Twenty or more may share a roost, and roosts in towns tend to be bigger than in the countryside; the largest known town roost, in Lviv in Ukraine, held 1,700 birds.¹⁰

The noisy groups of magpies seen in late winter and early spring have their own name: "ceremonial gatherings". The phrase goes back at least to F. J. Stubbs, writing in British Birds in 1910. He counted 200 magpies in one flock in south-east Lancashire in February 1895, and took the gatherings for courtship, the birds being "evidently in pairs".¹⁴ Charles Darwin had already reported, from a correspondent, magpies that met in spring in Delamere Forest for the "great magpie marriage".¹⁵

A seven-year study gave a different answer. The gatherings were started by high-ranking birds without a territory, mostly in the three months before breeding. Most of those birds were chased off, but about 30% of territories changed hands this way.¹⁶ That study ties the gatherings to winning territories rather than to courtship.

There is no special Australian term. The Macquarie Dictionary's list gives "tidings" for magpies without saying which kind, and calls such terms fanciful.⁹ The Australian Magpie is a different bird from the Eurasian Magpie, a relative of the butcherbirds.¹⁷

Australian Magpies live all year in groups of up to 24 birds, in territories that every member helps to defend.¹⁸ Scientists call these territorial groups. In some areas non-breeding birds without a territory form flocks of "floaters"; in the north most territories are held by pairs, while in the south and west groups with several adults are usual.¹⁹

1. Berners, J. (attributed), Blades, W. (facsimile ed.) (1486). The Boke of Saint Albans: The Compaynys of beestys and fowlys. St Albans; facsimile Elliot Stock, London, 1881. Accessed 12 October 2026. Source
2. Hodgkin, J. (1909). Proper terms: an attempt at a rational explanation of the meanings of the collection of phrases in 'The Book of St Albans,' 1486, entitled 'The Compaynys of beestys and fowlys' and similar lists. Transactions of the Philological Society 1907-1910, Supplement: 1-187. Accessed 12 October 2026. Source
3. RSPB. Magpie. RSPB Birds A-Z. Accessed 11 October 2026. Source
4. Lydgate, J., Caxton, W. (printer) (c. 1477). The Horse, the Sheep and the Goose (with an appended list of companies). Westminster (EEBO microfilm). Accessed 12 October 2026. Source
5. Halliwell, J. O. (1852). A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, vol. 2. John Russell Smith, London. Accessed 12 October 2026. Source
6. Scot, R. (1584). The Discoverie of Witchcraft, book 9, chapter 3. London (1886 reprint read). Accessed 12 October 2026. Source
7. Brand, J., Ellis, H. (ed.) (1813). Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 2. F. C. and J. Rivington, London. Accessed 12 October 2026. Source
8. Grose, F. (1787). A Provincial Glossary, with a Collection of Local Proverbs, and Popular Superstitions (Superstitions, p. 62). S. Hooper, London. Accessed 12 October 2026. Source
9. Macquarie Dictionary. Collective nouns for animals. Macquarie Dictionary (Australia). Accessed 11 October 2026. Source
10. Kirwan, G. M., Madge, S., Christie, D. A., Perlman, Y. (2025). Eurasian Magpie (Pica pica), version 1.1. Birds of the World (G. M. Kirwan, editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.eurmag1.01.1
11. Vines, G. (1981). A socio-ecology of magpies Pica pica. Ibis 123(2): 190-202. doi:10.1111/j.1474-919x.1981.tb00924.x
12. Eden, S. F. (1987). Natal philopatry of the Magpie Pica pica. Ibis 129(s2): 477-490. doi:10.1111/j.1474-919x.1987.tb08235.x
13. Eden, S. F. (1989). The social organization of non-breeding Magpies Pica pica. Ibis 131(1): 141-153. doi:10.1111/j.1474-919x.1989.tb02753.x
14. Stubbs, F. J. (1910). Ceremonial gatherings of the Magpie. British Birds 3: 334-336. Accessed 12 October 2026. Source
15. Darwin, C. (1871). The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, Part II, chapter XIV. John Murray, London (American printing read). Accessed 12 October 2026. Source
16. Birkhead, T. R., Clarkson, K. (1985). Ceremonial gatherings of the Magpie Pica pica: territory probing and acquisition. Behaviour 94(3-4): 324-332. doi:10.1163/156853985x00244
17. Russell, E., Rowley, I., Christie, D. A. (2020). Australian Magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen), version 1.0. Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie and E. de Juana, editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.ausmag2.01
18. Murray, M. Australian Magpie. Australian Museum. Accessed 11 October 2026. Source
19. Rowley, I., Rowley, E., Lill, A. (2022). A long-term study of a Western Magpie Cracticus tibicen dorsalis population: breeding and productivity. Corella 46: 46-61. Accessed 11 October 2026.