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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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great-crested flycatcher

May 7, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Two catbirds tangle in the air above the stream. A hummingbird dive-bombs a gnatcatcher. The first great-crested flycatcher holds forth.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags catbird, gnatcatcher, great-crested flycatcher, ruby-throated hummingbird, stream 1 Comment
May 4, 2010 by Dave Bonta

Great-crested flycatcher in the bare branches of a locust, silhouetted against the sky. A jet appears: no trail, just a gleaming splinter.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags great-crested flycatcher 1 Comment
June 5, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Towhee, robin, catbird, great-crested flycatcher: birdsongs sound more vivid in the rain, like jazz solos rising over a surf of applause.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American robin, catbird, great-crested flycatcher, ruby-throated hummingbird, towhee
May 2, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Two Jurassic-like things, both of them “great”: the call of a great-crested flycatcher, and seconds later, a great blue heron in flight.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags great blue heron, great-crested flycatcher
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On This Day

  • February 13, 2025
    Rain falling on snow: a soft sound that slowly grows harder, like a fantasy evolving into a belief. The dark tree limbs still look dapper…
  • February 13, 2024
    A filigreed fretwork of wet snow clinging to everything. From the valley, the wail of sirens. The cloud cover thins to a kind of brightness.
  • February 13, 2023
    The western ridge turns barn-red with sunrise. As it fades to gold, down in the hollow a mob of crows starts up, jeering, denouncing.
  • February 13, 2022
    Cold and gray. A commotion of wings by the springhouse where breakfast eludes a Cooper’s hawk. He sits in the crabapple ruffling his feathers.
  • February 13, 2021
    Half an hour after sunrise, birds crowd into the crabapple beside the spring, flitting quick as thought through the network of branches.

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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