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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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black-billed cuckoo

May 22, 2021 by Dave Bonta

The black cherry blossoms are already fading, and the sun is going from dandelion-yellow to dandelion seedhead-white. Black-billed cuckoo.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black cherry, black-billed cuckoo, clouds
June 8, 2020 by Dave Bonta

Both species of native cuckoos are calling. A dragonfly courses back and forth across the sun-drenched yard until I almost see it as a pond.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black-billed cuckoo, dragonflies, yellow-billed cuckoo
May 25, 2020 by Dave Bonta

Humid. An indigo bunting flits from bush to bush in the yard—all likely nest spots. The mechanical-sounding call of a black-billed cuckoo.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black-billed cuckoo, indigo bunting
October 9, 2018 by Dave Bonta

A black-billed cuckoo skulks through the lilac, elegant despite its hunched posture, its pointy-winged flight. A blue-headed vireo calls.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black-billed cuckoo, blue-headed vireo

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On This Day

  • September 16, 2025
    A knife-thin moon fades into the dawn sky. The only cloud huddles in the bottom corner of the meadow, where a phoebe is calling.
  • September 16, 2024
    Sun in the top of the tall tulip poplar—yellow crowning yellow. The last nighttime cricket falls silent. Off through the thinning woods, new chinks of sky.
  • September 16, 2022
    Cold (46F) with thin, high clouds. Black walnuts knocking on the roof. A red-tailed hawk drops in to visit the squirrels.
  • September 16, 2021
    Overcast and rainy. in the dim light, sunrise is evidenced only by the appearance of mosquitoes. One after another they land on my knuckles.
  • September 16, 2020
    Sun grown vague with haze from the burning of the west. The drone note of tree crickets, so much more introspective than cicadas.

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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