Feathered Friends - Show Me A Photo Contest Round 59 Small Birds

Here is my entry for the #smap contest with a theme of small bird hosted by @nelinoeva .
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Look at this tiny little guy. I spotted it on the San Pedro River in Southern Arizona bouncing around like crazy.

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At first glance it looked like a ruby or gold crowned kinglet given its tiny size and behavior.

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But as you can see it has no colored crown on its head. As it turns out this is a ruby crowned kinglet but this is its winter coloring.

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I spotted a few more in some pine trees.

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These guys are barely larger than a humming bird and bounce around constantly.

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Here is Hutton’s Vireo a very close lookalike to the ruby crowned kinglet. Their beak shape is thicker and their wing pattern is subtly different than the ruby crowned kinglet.

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The most noticeable difference is their call is quite loud and long compared to the tiny chit chat call of the ruby crowned kinglet.

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Here is another interesting small bird find. This one is about the size of a sparrow and is called a verdin. They are very shy and I was lucky to be able to catch this one high up in the branches before it flew off. They are mostly gray but have a golden orange cap that lets you identify them easily.

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What is this?! A flying dwarf lemon?

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This tiny little guy is Wilson's Warbler another one that is the same size as a kinglet. I wish I could have gotten clearer pictures of it but this one was really bouncy and loved hopping around in the thickets.

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For reference here is a house finch that is a good 15-20% larger than all the birds above.

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