The story
Probably from flutter the dovecote, possibly from Coriolanus (written c. 1608–1609; published 1623) by the English playwright William Shakespeare (1564–1616), Act V, scene vi (spelling modernized): “[L]ike an eagle in a dovecote, I / Fluttered your Volcians in Corioles.”
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.