chickadee – Page 10 – The Morning Porch

October 17, 2009 by Dave Bonta

The hush of snow against leaves like soft brushes playing on the skin of a drum. A chickadee calls, and then a nuthatch. Dee dee. Yank yank.

February 22, 2009 by Dave Bonta

White sky. The soft calls of a pair of downy woodpeckers on adjacent trees. Four chickadees on a high-speed chase tear through the lilac.

February 14, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Quiet at mid-morning. The sun’s a faint smudge. I hear a caroling from inside the house: a friend calling to tell me it’s snowing there.

January 18, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A titmouse lands on a snowy branch and puffs out the white down on its breast. From above the spring, a chickadee’s two-note song: hey ho.

December 30, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Clear and cold at sunrise, with gusts of wind and a roaring up on the ridge. Chickadees like yard-sale shoppers darting from find to find.

December 27, 2008 by Dave Bonta

In the darkness and fog, the sound of slush being punctured and scraped aside. I can just make out the solid shadows, their many thin legs.

December 24, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Freezing rain. A black birch sapling suddenly bows its head. As the temperature climbs, branches begin to shed their heavy decorations.

December 19, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Sleet to rain to sleet to rain: the tapping on the roof above my head keeps changing pitch. Faint notes of chickadees, titmice, a nuthatch.

December 8, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Cloudy and cold, but the chickadees, titmice, juncos and finches are carrying on as if they were seeing these trees for the very first time.

November 23, 2008 by Dave Bonta

The moon inches upward through the trees with the earth’s glowing shadow between its horns. Two train whistles converge, one high, one low.

November 20, 2012November 20, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Cold, gray, and windy, with a new half-inch of snow. The only flicker of warmth is a chickadee’s call—the pilot light in a stone-cold oven.

October 23, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Four chickadees glean frozen bugs from one skinny branch of the dead elm. Through newly porous trees, a 30-second glimpse of the rising sun.

February 14, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Sun behind the trees. A chickadee singing its “charee-charup” song—or so it sounds to me, whole layers of meaning hidden from primate ears.

February 12, 2008 by Dave Bonta

It’s snowing: fine, dry flakes. A squirrel falls out of a tree. Two chickadees drop into the bridal wreath bush to settle a score.