Skip to content

The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
  • About
  • Subscribe/Follow
  • On This Day
  • Keyword index
  • Links
    • Via Negativa
    • Moving Poems
    • DaveBonta.com
    • Woodrat Photoblog
September 5, 2013 by Dave Bonta

A small woodpecker has found a resonant snag and works it for all it’s worth. A rival responds, but his rattle is too thin and he quits.

Share on social media

  • Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags downy woodpecker
Previous Post
Next Post

FOLLOW VIA EMAIL

Pick up a free subscription (with options for daily and weekly digests) courtesy of WordPress.com.

Join 278 other subscribers

On This Day

  • January 6, 2025
    The merest shimmer of snow against the dark trees. The shriek of misaligned wheels on a lumbering freight train. One of the neighbor’s hens yelling…
  • January 6, 2024
    Heavy gray clouds, and a breeze from the east: storm coming. Something flushes all the doves from the spring—a euphony of bright notes.
  • January 6, 2023
    A few flakes of snow. Valley sounds eddy on the wind. The sun makes an appearance among the ridgetop trees.
  • January 6, 2020
    Sun through trees. Where one squirrel has just raced over the snow another squirrel follows, pausing in the same places. The allure of heat.
  • January 6, 2018
    Another brutally cold morning. From somewhere under the house where the heating ducts run, the trilling of a Carolina wren.

See all...

Related book

Cover of Ice Mountain with a linocut of a big ridgetop tree.

What I do after I sit on the porch. One winter and spring's daily walks distilled into short poems with linocut illustrations by Beth Adams.

Header image: detail from Paper Garden by Clive Hicks-Jenkins (used by permission)

Copyleft

Creative Commons License
All works on this site by Dave Bonta are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

© 2026 The Morning Porch • Built with GeneratePress