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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

  • September 11, 2025
    Clear and still, with dew dripping off the roof and a pair of phoebes yelling “Phoebe!” at each other. Twenty-four years ago, the sky was just this clear.
  • September 11, 2024
    Another gorgeous, cool morning. Two ravens fly over at sunrise, croaking. A phoebe in the distance is just audible under the usual cascade of wren song.
  • September 11, 2023
    Still overcast, but with a bit of a breeze. From the woods’ edge, the chick-burr call of a scarlet tanager. A chipmunk’s incessant metronome.
  • September 11, 2022
    Steady rain of the sort we’ve needed for months. Lily-of-the-valley’s drought-burnt leaves turn slick as tongues.
  • September 11, 2021
    Dawn. A coyote yipping and howling in the distance. The old hornets’ nest under the eaves gives birth to a Carolina wren.

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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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