A teaspoon of sugar weighs around 4 grams; 3 teaspoons make up a tablespoon.
The bird in this post’s featured image weighs around 7 grams.
Imagine an old-fashioned set of scales with a 1 ounce weight in one bowl.
To “balance” those scales would require 4 such birds in the other bowl!
I am almost sure that this particular individual is a Striated thornbill, Acanthiza lineata.
(all photos taken in December 2018, copyright Doug Spencer)
Such tiny, shy, and ever-shifting birds are difficult to see properly, let alone photograph well; it is small wonder that many people never notice how exquisite they are.
This species is primarily an eater of insects, and it catches most of them by leaf-gleaning.
Many birds are gleaners; the gleaner pictured below was adopting a typical posture, and “working” the very same pink gum.
The most conspicuous and seemingly most frequent visitors to the same tree are New Holland honeyeaters; Phylidonyris novaehollandiae is commonly seen across most of Australia.
And, of course, magpies are oft-seen and oft-heard here, as they also are across most of Australia.
I have just slightly cheated; this post’s photos were not taken whilst walking in Aldinga Scrub Conservation Park.
All these birds do use that Park, but I photographed them all from the balcony of the house we love to hire, which is right beside the Park…and a very short walk away from Silver Sands beach.
if you like small birds, you will probably also enjoy this.