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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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eastern cottontail

November 9, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Thick fog. When the wren stops singing, there’s dead silence for several minutes until a nuthatch calls. From father away, the death-cry of a rabbit.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Carolina wren, eastern cottontail, fog, white-breasted nuthatch
January 28, 2025 by Dave Bonta

In the half-dark of dawn, the white noise of wind is made literal by flocks of snowflakes swirling this way and that. Rabbit tracks go under the house and do not reemerge.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dawn, eastern cottontail, snow, snowflakes, wind
June 11, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Rising late, I’m in time to see the last cottontail going back under the house for a mid-morning nap. Cuckoos call in the distance. Common yellowthroat. Wood pewee.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags common yellowthroat, eastern cottontail, eastern wood pewee, yellow-billed cuckoo

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On This Day

  • March 17, 2025
    Gray aftermath of a strormy night. Still no phoebe or field sparrow. An icy breeze.
  • March 17, 2024
    Patches of blue. The mourning dove’s incessant cooing finally comes to an end, leaving the daffodils’ ensemble of horns to their silence.
  • March 17, 2023
    In the half-light of dawn, something approaches, rustling in the dry leaves: rain. A few minutes later, the first phoebe begins his time-worn chant.
  • March 17, 2022
    Rain tapping on the porch roof. Robin song echoes off the hillside. From down-hollow, the sound of a crow mob.
  • March 17, 2021
    Another gray day. The only snow left is what the plow mounded up, the earliest dating back to before Christmas: literal snows of yesteryear.

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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