The Morning Porch

April 3, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Thick fog at dawn, full of robin song and phoebe calls. Sunrise is signalled by little more than the growing thunder of pileated woodpeckers.

April 3, 2025
Hard rain slackening after sunrise. As the drumming on the roofs subsides, I can hear a torrent of Carolina wren song and towhee calls.
April 3, 2024
In the pre-dawn darkness, nothing but the sounds of rain and water. A low rumbling comes from the hole in my yard that leads down…
April 3, 2022
An unexpected glimpse of sun sets the swelling lilac buds aglow. I see the first few daffodils are trying on the new spring fashions.
April 3, 2021
Cooper’s hawks calling up on the ridge. One of them takes flight: such a small bird to be so strident! And the sky begins to…
April 3, 2020
Sun silvering black birch twigs. From the woods beyond, the call of a Cooper’s hawk. It can’t be long till the first shadbush blooms.