Sunday May 12, 2019

A flock of warblers at the woods’ edge in the pouring rain: flashes of redstart, cerulean, black-and-white. A singing black-throated green.

On this date

May 16, 2021

The catbirds are much more furtive now going into the barberry that hides their nest. Two cuckoos call up a bit of rain. …

May 16, 2020

A brown thrasher's jazz echoes off the barn. In the clear plastic hummingbird feeder, a lampyrid beetle takes a very long time to drown. …

May 16, 2019

A scraggly-looking doe, still in her gray winter pelt, crosses the stream below the house, pausing to graze on a multiflora rose. …

May 16, 2016

In the tall locusts still bare of leaves, the flaming orange of a Baltimore oriole—no, two orioles in a mad chase. The victor's brassy song. …

May 16, 2015

Both bluebirds land on top of the stump, look at me, and warble aggressively. In the lily-of-the-valley bed, the bells are fading to brown. …

May 16, 2014

The porch floor is blotched with pollen. Through the bright-green new leaves, the last few dots of sky are still visible above the ridge. * I'm off to the U.K., so this w …

May 16, 2013

Sunny and hot. A small ichneumon wasp on the shady side of a column actually stops vibrating for a few seconds and is completely still. …

May 16, 2012

The air is so clear, I can see individual specks of pollen. In the field, the long grass sways under the restless wings of a female harrier. …

May 16, 2010

At daybreak, a small deer leaps and twists like a bronco with an invisible rider, then careens through the purple haze of dame's-rocket. …

May 16, 2009

A phoebe hovers beside its nest under the springhouse eaves, then lands above it, bug still in beak, tail like a tapping foot: ah, marriage. …

May 16, 2008

At 6:00, the sky grows dark again as a storm approaches. Wood thrushes start back up. The lilac's white torches all point at the ground. …

The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow