T is for attack of the thornbill

small bird approaching camera with wings outstretched
Unlike finches who are little squeaky birds on the ground, thornbills are little squeaky birds in trees. They do have tiny little beaks. They also flitter and are hard to catch in focus so we are proud of these pics and it only took several hundred attempts. The thornbills come in various forms but they can be challenging to differentiate. I might have these wrong....

Even in Australia, there are "LBBs" - little brown birds. Scott claims the USA has lots. This is a brown thornbill:
small brown bird with tiny beak

He could be mistaken as a buff-rumped thornbill but those are less brown. This one has a bug so the beak looks funny:

small bird with bug in beak

The chestnut rumped version has the special tail
small bird with band on tail and small beak

This cutie is a striated thornbill (the default label for most):
puffed up bird with tiny beak

And this one is a yellow thornbill! At least the naming folks made these pretty straightforward
small yellow bird on branch

I do use the ebird app (which is fantastic) and google lens to check on my bird ids, along with a bird book. Google lens and the app are really good at deciphering fuzzy pics.Sometimes they agree, sometimes not. Sometimes it becomes a fuzzy plant....


We are still on our "trip" to South Australia. Jazz has decided Scott is her human and she is usually at his side, on his lap or at his feet. 
small dog next to man with laptop

She has a doggy door that is managed by a chip in her ear and she loves it. She comes and goes at will. Definitely has little dog syndrome and will take on about anything but the blue-tongued skink in the back yard. Any other dogs - she is ready! Any trucks - let her at them. She literally bounces up and down when ready to fight. 
No matter how attuned Scott is to shih tzus, we will probably need to get a bigger dog to avoid it being carried off by wildlife or eagles! 

We did a bit more shopping today to be ready for move in - bought a toaster and a kettle to boil water plus a laundry basket, pegs and bug killer spray!

Betty the truck is going to have a relatively full load. The back end does get dusty (we need to get something done about that) so we also bought large garbage bags to put stuff in. Trying to keep our list to the things that are okay to duplicate or we don't have yet. So many things to consider but we have been fine with minimal on our travels so most can wait. 

Weather has been very warm these last two days - today got to at least 98F/37 C but we think actually hotter than that. I have been sitting where I can see the bird bath through the window - it is getting lots of action. We soaked the plants last night but some are still struggling. 

More later - here is a whiskered tern to say farewell!

small white bird with black head flying








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