The Morning Porch

March 14, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Thin clouds at mid-morning. Four nuthatches in the treetops are all raising the same argument, the sun a yellow limit point in their midst.

March 13, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Clear and cold at sunrise. The feral cat slinks across the springhouse meadow. Muffled sounds of a squirrel scolding from inside its drey.

March 12, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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

March 11, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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.

March 10, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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.

March 9, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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

March 8, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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.

April 15, 2013March 7, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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.

March 6, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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.

March 5, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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.

March 4, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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.

March 3, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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.

March 2, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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.

April 15, 2013March 1, 2009 by Dave Bonta

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!