A group of woodcocks is called a plump, an older, more obscure alternate to “covey” describing the same kind of small, tightly bunched group resting or feeding on the ground. Despite how it sounds, the word has nothing to do with body size, it descends from an older English sense of “plump” meaning a compact mass or cluster.
The term belongs to the same older tradition of English game-bird venery terms as “covey,” and the two are largely interchangeable in practice, though “covey” is the far more commonly cited of the pair today. Both describe woodcock behavior accurately: rather than scattering across open ground, resting birds stay close together in dense cover, relying on camouflage and stillness rather than distance for safety.
Bonus fact: a woodcock’s mottled brown-and-black plumage renders a motionless bird nearly invisible against a leaf-littered forest floor, which is exactly the kind of cover a plump depends on.
Other Collective Nouns for Woodcocks
A group of woodcocks goes by more than one name, depending on what the birds are doing. You might also hear:
Related: Collective Nouns for Birds · What Is a Group of Woodcocks Called?