Strange collective nouns: are they common?

I'm from Germany and I always try to improve my English. Lately, I've stumbled upon a website that deals with collective nouns, that is to say, names for various groups of animals.

I always thought you'd call, for instance, many owls just "a group of owls"; however, it said they are called "a parliament". Other examples are "a litter/kindle of kittens" and "a murder of crows".

I would never doubt the trustworthiness of this website, but is it really common for "normal" English speakers (people who aren't biologists etc.) to call groups of animals like that? Would not people be puzzled if I used those terms in everyday life?

Solution 1:

It's going to be hard for the non-native speaker to sort the wheat from the chaff here; that is, to distinguish the common from the uncommon from the purely fanciful.

Fortunately, the Wikipedia article on List of English terms of venery, by animal deliberately indicates the standard terms in bold, like flocks of birds or of sheep*, schools of fish but pods of dolphins, herds of—well herd animals of course, prides of lions, packs of wolves, teams of horses, and so on.

A few of the more common alliterative terms like a a gaggle of geese or covey of quail or if you're very luck even a clowder of cats will be known by many. But the silly stuff from the Middle Ages like a murder of crows or an unkindness of ravens or a parliament of owls or a congregation of magpies are unlikely to be in general use.

There is probably room for a middle ground here for specialist terms, but where the lines are drawn is anybody's guess.

_{* I have no idea why both birds and sheep come in flocks.}