The Morning Porch

March 12, 2009

Dave Bonta March 12, 2009

Back below freezing. The word breeze no longer fits the low winds, full of bite and lightly salted with snow.

Dave Bonta March 11, 2009

Wet with a clearing wind at daybreak, and the yard rings with robin calls. I hear a loud rummaging in the nest up under the eaves.

Dave Bonta March 10, 2009

Two crows locate a small gray hawk in a maze of gray branches. But their angry calls soon taper off, and they sit silently under a gray sky.

Dave Bonta March 9, 2009

A rapid whistling of wings: a woodcock hurtles through the yard at eye-level. Thank you, Congress, for giving back our slow, dark mornings.

Dave Bonta March 8, 2009

The distant drumming of a pileated woodpecker is the loudest thing. A faint rustle in the field, the yard, the woods as the rain moves in.

Dave Bonta March 7, 2009

A warm morning—53°F. A Cooper’s hawk calls, a screech owl trills, but the squirrels go on rummaging through the leaf litter. I spy a gnat.

Dave Bonta March 6, 2009

A long dark streak on the red maple beside the road: sap is rising. A crow at the top of the tallest pine hunkers down to deliver every caw.

Dave Bonta March 5, 2009

A downy woodpecker plays a dead locust limb like a marimba, moving rapidly from pitch to pitch, a tremor of red against the blue sky.

Dave Bonta March 4, 2009

Right after a mourning dove’s song, a screech owl trills at the very same pitch. The sun floats free of the horizon and into the bluest sky.

Dave Bonta March 3, 2009

Cold air, bright sun. Snow-motes drift down from a cloudless sky. A mourning dove’s song. Dad calls to tell me Mom’s having dizzy spells.

Dave Bonta March 2, 2009

A groundhog emerges from the culvert and rears up to survey a route to the next female’s burrow. His head swivels, following a noisy crow.

Dave Bonta March 1, 2009

Just two, isolated caks in half an hour, but I’m almost certain it’s a Cooper’s hawk turning over his rusty courtship motor. Happy March!

Dave Bonta February 28, 2009

The local geese seem restless, flying from valley to valley as if trying to remember how to migrate. Four juncos in the road gathering grit.

Dave Bonta February 27, 2009

A downpour. Just above the ridge, a sudden flash followed by a teeth-rattling rumble, the outline of an inverted tree fading on my retina.