The Morning Porch

November 25, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Light rain as the sky grows light. Two screech owls call back and forth, trill answering quaver, just as the Carolina wrens do a few minutes later.

August 20, 2025
Rain starts at sunrise and tapers off a half hour later. In its wake: phoebe, pewee, goldfinch, Carolina wren. A cedar waxwing’s whistle.
August 20, 2024
Windy and cold, with the sun in and out of clouds. The Carolina wren’s usual enthusiasm sparks a red-eyed vireo to call exactly once.
August 20, 2023
Another autumnal dawn. A screech owl trills from just inside the woods. Crows head past en route to an angry mob. The fluting of geese.
August 20, 2022
Sun through a scrim of cloud. The first white snakeroot is in bloom. A Linne’s cicada rattles like a bad engine.
August 20, 2021
Cardinal joined by a whippoorwill. The white shapes in the yard turn out to be snakeroot.