There's heavy rain in the forecast—yet again—and while the deluges, if they in fact arrive, will no doubt keep my photo gear inside, it won't dissuade me from voting in the mid-terms. This year, it'll be a straight Democrat ballot for me—the fallout from the Trump era is that I can't abide anyone from the Republican side of the aisle, even people who are otherwise presumably decent and honorable—and I'll be hoping that somehow the results will squelch the rising tide of Nazism that has appeared on the horizon. Enough said... The rain has also not kept some of the late-season migrants from coming back to the ridge for the winter. As I looked out a misty window in the front of the house, I noticed a very energetic and tiny bird that flitted from branch to branch in the hollies and harvested invertebrates too minute for me to spot. I knew it was a Kinglet, our smallest winter songbird, and, with the Sigma 100-400mm at the ready, I tried willing the sprite into shooting range. The "bird whisperer" apparently succeeded, and for the briefest of moments, I got a fine look at the characteristic yellow head stripe of a temporarily cooperative Golden-crowned Kinglet—the first, but hopefully not the last, of its breed to grace our neighborhood. With any luck, it was a harbinger of better times, electorally, at any rate, ahead.