Arising early, I stumbled upon this poem, “Table for One, Please” by Bartholomew Barker. That led to reading more of his poems, including THIS ONE at BeatnikCowboy.com. Have a look at it, but please come back to hear my reply. I was so impressed that he knew a herd of deer could be called a “parcel,” but then it occurred to me that perhaps he was just being poetically inventive, so I had to research the matter and in doing so, found this list of synonyms for “herd,” as it applies to deer:
In most situations, you can refer to a group of animals like deer simply as a “herd”. A herd of deer is probably the most common way to designate them, but it is most assuredly the most boring. To be more deer-specific, the other ways to refer to a group of deer include a bevy, a rangale, a bunch, or a parcel. When using parcel, however, it’s generally going to refer to a group of only young deer.
And that new knowledge led, unfortunately, to this hair-splitting and corny rhymed poem on my part:
Deer Ones
A “herd” is most commonly what you will hear
folks calling a grouping of two or more deer;
but if you’re a poet in need of a rhyme,
perhaps you’ll use “bevy” some of the time.
Which is just as correct, though granted, more rare
to describe groups of deer that are more than a pair.
But if you need a rhyme for deer in a dale,
you just might prefer to use a “rangale,”
which is also proper—or perhaps a “bunch,”
to label a deer herd gathered for lunch
in field or in forest, munching on leaves
or grass, twigs or acorns—or crops left when sieves
abandon their fields of soybeans or corn
leaving some crops abandoned, forlorn.
But if you use “parcel” to call deer among
deer of their ilk—that’s just deer who are young!
The Indigestibles
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lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 