Is this Thrips?

[EmeraldMistress]

I posted these pictures to the orchid subreddit to ask what was going on with my new Oncidium. Someone suggested that the black dots are indicative of a thrips infestation. I’ve looked and looked all over the plant and can’t find any bugs. I tapped the leaves and flowers over a sheet of paper and didn’t see any fall off. I’ve blown into an open flower and didn’t see any moving around inside. But I’ve also lost several flowers in the week since I’ve brought it home; I assumed it was either from the change in environment causing early flower loss, or just that some of the flowers were near the end of their life span anyway. But now I wonder if the flower loss was due to the bugs. Either way, I want to be more confident that it is in fact thrips before I start treating it; no sense in spraying it with chemicals for no reason.

Someone else suggested unpotting it to check for root issues, and that’s definitely on my list of things to look at, but is also a bit more invasive. I was hoping to come here an hear about other ways I could check for thrips or perhaps another idea on what the issue was before I took the whole plant out of its pot. The third picture of the leaf with the spots on it wasn’t included in the Reddit post - I didn’t really notice it until I started looking really closely for the bugs, but I figured it might help to include it here for diagnostic purposes. Thank you!!