T is for attack of the thornbill
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: He could be mistaken as a buff-rumped thornbill but those are less brown. This one has a bug so the beak looks funny: The chestnut rumped version has the special tail This cutie is a striated thornbill (the default label for most): And this one is a yellow thornbill! At least the naming folks made these pretty straightforward 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....