From the initial posting, it seems these birds avoided the smoke. Miners used to use canaries in coal mines to detect gas. Birds are exquisitely sensitive to co

From the initial posting, it seems these birds avoided the smoke. Miners used to use canaries in coal mines to detect gas. Birds are exquisitely sensitive to combustion fumes. Their instinct is to get far away. It appears they fled to an insect free desert area and kept pushing on until they literally exhausted their fat reserves. The only way I can think to help them is to scatter some meal worms on the ground in the hopes that you will save a few. It will have to done on a wide area = probably not practical. The only long term solution is to change forest management to allow the understory of brush/grass/small trees to burn every 2-3 years via intentional fires. In addition substantial clear zones around all homes in addition to stripes of clear zones every 1/2 mile as fire breaks. These highly packed stand of trees with thick understories burn to the ground, kill all trees and sterilize the soil of seeds so nothing grows for a while until wind scatters in new seeds. California has done this to itself, with the help of The Sierra Club (who lobbied against preventive burns because the home owners loved the trees and bushes where they lived) You reap what you sow. Changes MUST come ASAP