Lesser Goldfinches are tiny, thumb-sized creatures, rich green on their backs, gilded dandelion on their breasts, with trim little black caps and splotchy white-and-black wings.

In a bush nearby I’ve been hearing the liquid gabble of practicing Golden-crowned sparrows, fresh from the North. I know they were born this spring because they’re only “singing” these babbly liquid burble sounds, with snatches of barely recognizable sparrow-tune.

In 2020, I watched swallows curling in low flight, as they do before a rainstorm. The air was stagnant, dry, smoke-brown; the sun a pale yellow disk. Wildfires were burning almost 21,000 acres in the United States, mostly in Oregon, Washington and California.