Here is my entry for the #smap contest with a theme of small bird hosted by @nelinoeva .
Look at this tiny little guy. I spotted it on the San Pedro River in Southern Arizona bouncing around like crazy.
At first glance it looked like a ruby or gold crowned kinglet given its tiny size and behavior.
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.
I spotted a few more in some pine trees.
These guys are barely larger than a humming bird and bounce around constantly.
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.
The most noticeable difference is their call is quite loud and long compared to the tiny chit chat call of the ruby crowned kinglet.
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.
What is this?! A flying dwarf lemon?
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.
For reference here is a house finch that is a good 15-20% larger than all the birds above.