A charm of goldfinches. An ostentation of peacocks. A murder of crows. The English language brims with witty words for flocks of birds Thought to have originated from hunting manuals, the practice of inventing collective nouns for birds has since evolved into a sport all its own, with new words striving to perfectly capture the essence of each bird.

A Conspiracy of Ravens presents readers with a compendium of collective bird nouns from the distant and not-so-distant past. Some of the nouns are portentous, like a tiding of magpies. Others, like a murmuration of starlings or a...