11/18/2019

Dave Bonta November 18, 2019

The damp silence inside a cloud, broken only by a pileated woodpecker’s muffled tapping and the distant caw of a crow.

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11/18/2019

November 16, 2023
Venus like a searchlight through the bare trees. A great-horned owl calls on the far side of the ridge, but gets no response. He tries…
11/18/2019

November 16, 2022
First snowfall like a goose-down quilt. How happy the white-footed mice must be, thinking it gives protection against the owls.
11/18/2019

November 16, 2021
A wren calls under the porch. It’s five degrees below freezing. An inversion layer brings the whine of tires over the ridge, red with sunrise.
11/18/2019

November 16, 2020
A cold front roared in overnight. Now the wind has dropped and the clouds are clearing out. Tall goldenrod stalks shake their gray heads.
11/18/2019

November 16, 2019
It’s warm in the sun, though the air is cold. A red-tailed hawk comes in fast and low toward the feeder, pulls up, circles, and…
11/18/2019

November 16, 2018
Truly an autumn snow: eight inches with a topping of fallen oak leaves. In the green and brown lilac, a house finch’s purple breast.
11/18/2019

November 16, 2017
Glimpses of a large, dark animal running way off through the woods, its footsteps inaudible over the wind. Great flocks of leaves.
11/18/2019

November 16, 2016
Overcast and breezy. The blue-gray back of a small hawk—sharp-shinned or Cooper’s—darting through the yard. A few raindrops tap on the roof.
11/18/2019

November 16, 2015
To the east, an agitated crow. Over by the cattails, an anxious wren. And behind me under the house, a groundhog bumps and scrapes.
11/18/2019

November 16, 2014
A whispering in the dried grass: not wind but sleet. A hawk materializes like a magician’s handkerchief and flies off through the trees.

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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

11/18/2019