Spectator competition winners: dystopian animal stories

In Competition No. 3222, you were invited to supply a dystopian short story that incorporates as many collective nouns for animals or birds as possible.

Your appetite for dystopian imaginings may be somewhat limited at the moment — ‘How about setting something sweet and optimistic?’ write Frank Upton — and there was a dismal sameness about the entry this week. Notable exceptions included David Silverman’s Huxley-Orwell-Collins-Atwood mash-up, Nick Syrett’s Conan Doyle-inspired vignette, and the winners, below, who each pocket £25.

After the human colonies had been obliterated, meetings of the Great Unkindness took place, of course, at Ravenna. Each year, patrolling mobs, murders, gaggles, skeins, charms and even convocations of birds from finches to eagles reported on undue activity. Worryingly, a weight of albatrosses reported seeing a shoal of coelacanths near Madagascar — fish with legs had to be watched. A land-based covey of grouse was sent in to observe, while a siege of herons kept up surveillance.