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Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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house wren

October 19, 2016 by Dave Bonta

The barberry beside the stream is turning from the inside out: under a green cloak, salmon pink, blood-red beads, the hurdy-gurdy of a wren.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags barberry, fall foliage, house wren, stream 1 Comment
September 25, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Clear and cold. A squirrel trots into the woods with the green globe of a walnut clenched in its teeth. The oleaginous burble of a wren.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black walnut, gray squirrel, house wren
August 31, 2009 by Dave Bonta

The low-frequency hum of a passing jet vibrates the windows and the ladder’s metal rungs. A wren chatters alarm at the missing floorboards.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags house wren
July 31, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A house wren ascends a stepladder in the steady rain. With a sudden crack, the cherry tree beside the porch sheds a dead branch.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cherry tree, house wren

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On This Day

  • May 27, 2025
    Overcast and cool. As the wood thrush fades in the distance, the brown thrasher parodies his song. Waxwings whistle in the treetops. The sun almost comes out.
  • May 27, 2024
    Dawn: a blurry moon just above the trees losing its glow. The wood thrush’s ethereal song gives way to a red-eyed vireo sounding like a wind-up bird, going at twice normal speed.
  • May 27, 2023
    Another clear, cold morning with little dew. Goldfinches gad about in the tops of the locusts, seemingly oblivious to other birds’ territorial obsessions.
  • May 27, 2022
    A lull between showers; the avian chorus swells. Each recumbent lily-of-the-valley leaf cradles a collection of raindrops.
  • May 27, 2021
    It’s so clear I can see the tiniest specks of aerial flotsam drifting past the sun. A cuckoo switches to his most plaintive call.

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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