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Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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barred owl

September 17, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Out early, I listen to barred owls, watch the pulsing light of a glowworm crossing the walk like a satellite on an exceptionally low orbit.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags barred owl, glowworms 1 Comment
January 15, 2017 by Dave Bonta

A barred owl calls in the bright sun. Snow meltwater starts dripping onto the porch roof—a simple rhythm that grows increasingly complex.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags barred owl, snow
January 3, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Steady rain. Two drenched birders walk up the road, towels draped over their binoculars, and tell me they’d managed to flush a barred owl.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags barred owl, Christmas bird count, rain
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On This Day

  • March 10, 2025
    In the half dark, the roar of Monday morning traffic from over the ridge. The last stars fade. A cardinal pipes up.
  • March 10, 2024
    Time Change Day! I for one welcome our chronological overlords, and I’m out at the new 6:30 just as the weather, too, is making a…
  • March 10, 2023
    Flurries in lieu of a sunrise; the ground is already white again. A faint, yellow-green wash on the rambling old lilac—buds are beginning to swell.
  • March 10, 2022
    Yesterday’s snow glitters between the shadows of trees. To the winter-long harangues of cardinal, titmouse and Carolina wren, add one phoebe.
  • March 10, 2021
    Sun in the tops of the pines. The sine curve of a pileated woodpecker’s flight path over the house. Her mad cackle after she lands.

See all...

Related book

Cover of Ice Mountain with a linocut of a big ridgetop tree.

What I do after I sit on the porch. One winter and spring's daily walks distilled into short poems with linocut illustrations by Beth Adams.

Header image: detail from Paper Garden by Clive Hicks-Jenkins (used by permission)

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