Showing their colours

Our early get-away to the hills didn't materialise. As ever, preparing for guests who arrive on Sunday evening and the general process of battening down the hatches took far longer than intended, so we only set off at 2pm.

The drought and unseasonable heat continue and are even set to increase - and no rain in sight. The main São Paulo reservoir is practically dry, leaving 6 million or so people at imminent risk of severe water rationing. And fires rage in many areas in the south-east of Brazil. As we drove out of Rio, the mountains might have just wandered off for all we could see of them. They were completely obscured by - what? Nothing immediately identifiable as smoke, or even cloud - perhaps miasma would be the word, it has the right sinister sound. We still haven't identified more than small, roadside fires, but when we stopped the car, the air was full of burning fragments of vegetation, and the terrace and grass were covered with them, as well as a thin layer of ash.

Arriving at home, I found the birdbath bone dry, and was delighted by how quickly the birds arrrived after I had filled it. They even let me get almost near enough to take a decent photo. I think the one on the bottom right must be the female - she seems to have borrowed her hat from the sparrow, but that yellow chest ... methinks she must be a tanager.