The past couple of evenings, the wildfires north of here have given us sunsets that are more colorful than usual. Tonight I went out and walked around the cemetery at dusk; the light was rosy with a yellowish tinge. I went up to where you can look out at San Francisco Airport, and watched a couple of jetliners land. A bank of fog was stretched from the Golden Gate across the Bay towards Oakland; an avalanche of fog curled over the top of San Bruno Mountain; here in San Mateo, the fog was several hundred feet above me, pushed upwards as it moved up the Crystal Springs Gap. Then I happened to look up, and there was a pair of White-tailed Kites hovering overhead, silhouetted against the bright low clouds; they worked their way down the hill, and for a few minutes I watched them come to a hover every minute or so, until they disappeared farther down the hill behind some trees. The rosy glow from the sunset really was lovely, even with the realization that a good bit of that lovely redness came from wildfire smoke.
