…and my favourite, blackbird 🤣 well done whoever thought of that one.

I hold off on the plaudits because the blackbird (a) isn't entirely black thanks to its yellow beak, and (b) if female, isn't black at all. So a black bird is likely to be a crow or a raven, but not a blackbird. Which is the sort of thing that gets the namers of birds glared at.

The peak of this is the black headed gull, which doesn't have a black head and the black head it doesn't have isn't there all year round either

It is a gull. But as said, it has its black head (which is brown) for about two months of the year.

I have just learned that in 2005(ish) it was removed from the genus Larus and placed with nine others in the resurrected genus Chroicocephalus, which means that until recently even the sort of gull it was was incorrect.

Thankfully chroico- means coloured rather than black, which would have been the final insult.

Bless this incredible birdnerd thread and all who pedant in her 💯