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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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great spangled fritillary

June 12, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Breezy and warm. A chipmunk races down the driveway, trailed by a great-spangled fritillary. A few small scraps of cloud pass overhead.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags chipmunk, clouds, great spangled fritillary
July 12, 2016 by Dave Bonta

The random yet purposeful flight of a great-spangled fritillary. The wind dies and a piece of thistle down descends straight into the yard.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bull thistle, great spangled fritillary, wind
June 14, 2016 by Dave Bonta

A cricket in the wall chirps more quickly now that the sun is on it. I sneeze and he falls silent. A great spangled fritillary careens past.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags crickets, great spangled fritillary
June 26, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Gray sky in which the sun slowly surfaces like a carp in a murky pond. Rain-slick leaves glisten. A great spangled fritillary zigzags past.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, great spangled fritillary, rain 1 Comment
June 16, 2015 by Dave Bonta

A great spangled fritillary lands in the grass, folds its orange wings shut and turns into a dead leaf, barely moving for the next hour.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags great spangled fritillary
June 24, 2010 by Dave Bonta

Sunny, hot and windy—an odd combination. The forest murmurs like surf on a hot day at the beach. An orange butterfly zooms past at 60 mph.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags great spangled fritillary 2 Comments

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On This Day

  • September 8, 2025
    Cold, clear, and still at sunrise, with little sign of the more than two million birds who streamed overhead during the moonlit hours aside from a few soft, scattered chirps.
  • September 8, 2024
    Breezy and cool at mid-morning. A blue jay’s rusty croon in the crown of an oak. The plop of dropped acorns.
  • September 8, 2023
    Overcast and cool. Last night’s storm has left the Japanese stiltgrass sprawled this way and that, its stalks just beginning to turn red.
  • September 8, 2022
    Light rain accompanying a front. As it tapers off, the yard fills with small birds—yellow-rumped and other warblers combing the leaves for breakfast.
  • September 8, 2017
    Cool and almost clear. A few clouds come scudding from the same direction as the highway noise, as if themselves powered by small engines.

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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