Early or Not...

This bird seems to have caught the worm. Always entertaining to stop and watch the Black-headed Gulls on the beach. I was going to write that their scientific name is Larus ridibundus, another of the names that stuck from my teenage birdwatching days, only to discover that, like the Gannet, it's name has changed recently. The Gannet is no longer Sula bassana but now Morus bassana. Even although Sula comes from the Old Norse/Icelandic for Gannet and Morus is from the Ancient Greek for foolish, the gannets are Morus while only the Boobies are now Sula - go figure. Anyway, the same sort of DNA analysis has divided up the Laridae, moving the small dark-headed gulls into a different genus - Chroicocephalus (from the Ancient Greek for 'Coloured head'). Hence the Black-headed Gull is now Chroicocephalus ridibundus. Every day's a school day!