A colleague e-mailed me about my piece on bird strikes. I had to share:

Years ago I produced an environmental series and was corrected by a birder (who still works here) on my use of the term “Canadian Geese” in one of the reports. It’s a common mistake, but they are always referred to, correctly, as Canada goose or Canada geese. It feels awkward, but it’s right. Your report yesterday doesn’t need to get a cq but chances are you’ll remember this, just as I have.

I actually wrote “Canada geese” throughout my piece based on what the ornithologists said, but I second guessed myself during copy editing and agreed to change it to “Canadian” because it sounded better.

Ah, English, everything that sounds wrong is right.