The Morning Porch

August 29, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Moonlit dawn. A screech owl quavers, prompting a barred owl to hoot. As light builds in the east, a whippoorwill begins to shriek.

September 20, 2025
Cloudy and cool. The shed skin of a rat snake has blown off the back roof and dangles in the branches of a walnut. In the next tree over, a gray squirrel walks to the end of a limb, sniffing each walnut, and picks the one at the very end.
September 20, 2024
Clear and still, except for the periodic crashing down of a walnut, each one followed by a small entourage of yellow leaves. The sun clears the ridge and the trees reclaim their shadows.
September 20, 2023
Clearing enough by 8:00 for the sun to nest in the treetops. Highway noise subsides, giving way to the knocks and clatter of falling walnuts and acorns, the scold-calls of chipmunks, the jeers of jays.
September 20, 2022
A clear dawn sky, with the crescent moon like Orion’s boomerang just missing Castor and Pollux. The widely scattered chirps of migrating birds.
September 20, 2021
Spring peeper just after moonset. Then whippoorwill. Wood thrush. Carolina wren. Phoebe. A pileated woodpecker cackles and it’s day.