Group Solve

[Darth]

Off the sofa sectionals. :P Thanks.

[Berto]

OTC after looking everywhere for the remote and realizing I had it in my hand all along. Doh!

[MarkWoychick]

OTC - knew what I had to do in general, went for an evening walk and the answer magically appeared. Thanks @ajk and @Guffman - very nice collaboration

[sharkicicles]

I guess when it comes to this debut puzzle you could say we were… waiting for Guffman.

(Tip your waitress, try the REVEAL.)

Hang on a minute, shouldn't we be waiting to go DOH!

Oh, and the reveal was delicious but I'm in a fowl mood so I'm going to have the retweet....

leave it to DrTom to upstage me, I should be so Lucky.

[DrTom]

I guess when it comes to this debut puzzle you could say we were… waiting for Guffman.

(Tip your waitress, try the REVEAL.)

Hang on a minute, shouldn't we be waiting to go DOH!

Oh, and the reveal was delicious but I'm in a fowl mood so I'm going to have the retweet....

leave it to DrTom to upstage me, I should be so Lucky.

I never intend to upstage, sorry! I was just trying to be punny, oops ...funny. Word play is like mudpuddles were when I was a kid. I knew I should not jump in them, but I could never resist.

[ChrisKochmanski]

Couch is minus me!

That’s a debut? You’re already in mid meta career form!

[Cinny]

Off the couch with a nudge from a friendly muggle.

[ajk]

Tuesday solver update, with the usual caveats about possible forum/Crosshare username overlaps. Please let me know if I missed anyone.
[TS] Wendy Walker
[TS] Abide
[TS] Cap'n Rick
1. andeux
2. benchen71
3. Mr Tex
4. Schmeel
5. Tom Wilson
6. Alex Sisti
7. Meg
8. JM
9. merlinnimue
10. schmidzy
11. Hector
12. michaelm
13. boharr
14. CPJohnson
15. whimsy
16. hcbirker
17. Cindy
18. woozy
19. DebbieC
20. Carolyn
21. david
22. MatthewL
23. Laura M
24. DrTom
25. HeadinHome
26. Sharkicicles
27. Eric Porter
28. FrankieHeck
29. Anita
30. kurtalert
31. Gutman
32. Streroto
33. KayW
34. emmie
35. Tyrpmom
36. Darth
37. lbray53
38. Berto
39. MarkWoychick
40. Bird Lives
41. markhr
42. I K Snamhcok
43. ChrisKochmanski
44. DIS
45. Cindy Heisler
46. Cinny

[rjy]

Late to it, and needed only the very tiniest of nudges, but this was just a delight when the lightbulb finally clicked on. Really. And to think it was a debut?? Congrats and keep ‘em coming!

[Qmark]

Only getting the Monday puzzle today, but am happy to say I'm off the couch. Loved it...great debut. Thanks!

[JeanneC]

Great fun puzzling out the mechanism and solve. Hope to see more submissions in the future!

[ajk]

Pre-nudge leaderboard update:
47. LB800
48. BarbaraK
49. rjy
50. Darrell
51. Qmark
52. JeanneC

[ajk]

Nudges, in increasing order of nudgeness:

1A talks about birds on a wire. That would be a group of birds.

Given the title, groups seem important.

What do starred entries have to do with groups?

Not sure which birds to associate with some entries? There are clues.

OK, but now what? AUPCQ is not promising. Can we make anything of the bird names?

OK, now you have yet another bird, but that's not the answer. Think groups again.

[Katiedid]

loved it!

[Jeremy Smith]

Needed the nudges but still an enjoyable puzzle. Thank you gentlemen!

[minimuggle]

Wow, that was educational. I'm finally beamed up thanks to the nudges. In awe of the structure of the puzzle. thanks so much

[Ergcat]

OTC after nudges! Great debut!

[mkmf]

Submitted and presuming OTC. Needed several nudges to get on the path and then needed a final nudge to back up a bit. Fun one!

[ajk]

Solver update:
53. Steve M
54. Johnny Luau
55. ky-mike
56. Dave C
57. Katiedid
58. Mikey G
59. Jeremy Smith
60. minimuggle
61. bhamren
62. DCBilly
63. Richard
64. Jaclyn
65. BrennerTJ
66. Ergcat
67. AxelPlays
68. SeamusOL
69. hoover
70. mkmf
71. Anita and Steve [who got accidentally deleted earlier]

[ajk]

The meta answer is MURDER.

This puzzle started with an email from @Guffman suggesting the idea, and an initial set of themers. We then went back and forth a few times on different iterations of the theme entries, struggling initially to get a symmetric set that excluded any ambiguous groups (if only the waxwing/MUSEUM connection was a little stronger...but I digress).

In the end symmetry was sacrificed on the altar of clarity, which was then further adorned with sparkly asterisks and sneaky (or not so sneaky) hints sprinkled through the clues. Those latter garnishes were added after at least some test solvers found the plain version a bit tougher than our target difficulty level. Once we got the fill together the clues were split about in half, and eventually we arrived at a final version.

On to the puzzle itself then. Hopefully the title put you in mind of groups, and perhaps the image of birds on a wire from 1A suggested that the groups in question might be of the avian variety.

Even if these more subtle signs went unread, five across entries bore the ever-helpful asterisk:
8A ASYLUM
34A UNKINDNESS
41A PARLIAMENT
50A CHIME
58A QUARREL

Perhaps one or more of those rang a bell in the context of groups? If not, then what? Well, the grid has nothing more for you, but a few of those clues seem odd, no? Surely there are more concise ways to clue HISS at 52A or or SEPT at 52D? Indeed, if you scan the clues you might notice the inclusion of exactly five bird species (cuckoos, ravens, owls, wrens, and sparrows), which matches the number of asterisks.

In fact, each of the starred entries is a collective noun describing one of those groups of birds (as detailed below). And the first letter of each species (taken in grid order of the collective noun) spells CROWS. But that's not a great answer to the prompt. However, a group of crows of course has one of the most famous collective nouns: MURDER. Which is the answer to the meta.

Thanks to @Guffman for the idea, and for putting up with the frustrations of the puzzle construction process. Thanks also to @Wendy Walker, @Abide, and @Cap'n Rick for test solving. We hope that you all enjoyed it, and that the body count remained zero.

p.s. -- if this puzzle triggers a vague sense of deja vu, you might be thinking of @Cap'n Rick's related effort from May.