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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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brown creeper

November 4, 2012 by Dave Bonta

A titmouse hops from one limb-stump to another on the newly truncated cherry snag. Five minutes later, a brown creeper scoots up the bole.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags brown creeper, cherry tree, tufted titmouse
August 26, 2012December 21, 2010 by Dave Bonta

Solstice sunrise turns the western ridge red as an altar. A brown creeper fishes in all the dark valleys of the walnut tree’s bark.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black walnut, brown creeper, solstice, sunrise 5 Comments
August 26, 2012October 31, 2010 by Dave Bonta

Below the porch, a dot of pink: a very late dame’s-rocket blooming the day after a hard frost. A brown creeper inspects a small walnut tree.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black walnut, brown creeper, dame's-rocket, frost
January 18, 2010 by Dave Bonta

The overcast sky looks the same, but the light turns from glow to dull in just 15 minutes. I watch a brown creeper but hear only nuthatches.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags brown creeper, white-breasted nuthatch
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On This Day

  • October 16, 2025
    Clear and cold, with a breeze out of the north. I get my winter coat out of storage, make clouds with my breath. Church bells from town toll the hour.
  • October 16, 2024
    Overcast and gloomy. A single scarlet bough glows like a stoplight in the dark woods. The distant drumming of a pileated woodpecker.
  • October 16, 2023
    Still no frost. A Carolina wren putt-putts at the woods’ edge. From the powerline, a white-throated sparrow’s plaintive “Oh sweet Canada…”
  • October 16, 2022
    Colors so much warmer than the air. Halfway through the morning, the sky clears. Sun in the treetops. A phoebe calls.
  • October 16, 2021
    The last star blinks out just as rain begins to tap on the roof. A spring pepper calls. Dawn begins to seem like a possibility.

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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