The Morning Porch

February 1, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Clear at sunrise. The squeaks of courting squirrels are almost indistinguishable from the squeaks of the trees, rocking in the warm wind.

February 23, 2025
Clear at dawn, with the bright crescent moon inching teeth-first through the treetops. A mourning dove plays a downbeat rooster.
February 23, 2024
Foggy at dawn with sound out of the east—the quarry instead of the interstate. Gray-green lichens glow on the rain-darkened trunks of sweet birches all…
February 23, 2023
Mist rises from yesterday’s half inch of icy snow. A robin briefly joins the dawn chorus. The front-garden chipmunk returns from the woods with bulging…
February 23, 2022
Unseasonably warm and overcast. Up in the woods, squirrels nose through leaf duff newly liberated from the snow. A few drops of rain.
February 23, 2021
Overcast at sunrise. The cak-cak-cak of a Cooper’s hawk beginning to think about courtship and nesting, somewhere up in the snowy woods.