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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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indigo bunting

August 13, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Cool and breezy, with everything damp from another rainy night. An indigo bunting sings a few bars and falls silent. An jewelweed stalk still sways from a hummingbird’s visit.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags indigo bunting, jewelweed, ruby-throated hummingbird Leave a comment
August 7, 2024August 7, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Rain at dawn, tapering off by sunrise. Everything looks drenched. From behind the house, an indigo bunting’s cascade of notes.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags indigo bunting, rain, sunrise
June 6, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Low clouds trailing drizzle settle into the trees, where a wood thrush and a wood pewee are calling. From the wet meadow, an indigo bunting’s bone-dry song.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, eastern wood pewee, indigo bunting, rain, wood thrush
June 15, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Unseasonably cool at daybreak. Underneath the excited back-and-forth of a redstart and an indigo bunting, the soft calls of a gnatcatcher.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American redstart, blue-gray gnatcatcher, indigo bunting
May 20, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Rain. The hummingbird darts out to drink from her favorite spiderweb. Indigo bunting like the one blue leaf.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags indigo bunting, rain, ruby-throated hummingbird
May 30, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Rainy and cold. An indigo bunting and a phoebe clash briefly in the air above the stream and retire to neighboring walnut branches.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags indigo bunting, phoebe, rain, stream
May 25, 2020 by Dave Bonta

Humid. An indigo bunting flits from bush to bush in the yard—all likely nest spots. The mechanical-sounding call of a black-billed cuckoo.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black-billed cuckoo, indigo bunting
May 9, 2019 by Dave Bonta

Singers change with the weather: in the mist, wood thrush and cerulean warbler. Scarlet tanager in the drizzle. Indigo bunting in the rain.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cerulean warbler, indigo bunting, rain, scarlet tanager, wood thrush
June 8, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Wind salted with rain. A male indigo bunting clings to a black cherry branch like the one blue leaf, fluttering with the rest.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags black cherry, indigo bunting, rain, wind
May 5, 2016 by Dave Bonta

A catbird in his dapper gray drives an indigo bunting from the yard. Two migrant white-crowned sparrows beside the road load up on grit.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags catbird, indigo bunting, white-crowned sparrow
July 9, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Red-eyed vireo, common yellowthroat, indigo bunting: the primary colors of this morning’s diminished chorus. The dog twitches in her sleep.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags common yellowthroat, dogs, indigo bunting, red-eyed vireo
June 6, 2015 by Dave Bonta

A flash of blue as one indigo bunting chases another out of the yard. From within the rock wall, a chipmunk’s hollow tock.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags chipmunks, indigo bunting
May 13, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Cool and humid. Two male indigo buntings meet in the lilac bush and click at each other like angry blue Geiger counters.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags indigo bunting, lilac
May 10, 2014 by Dave Bonta

An indigo bunting forages in the leaf duff, blue as an antique medicine bottle, while a scarlet tanager calls from the tree above.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags indigo bunting, scarlet tanager
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On This Day

  • August 18, 2025
    Breezy and cool. The white lilac, with at least 75% of its leaves dead from disease, is bizarrely in blossom again, with at least five full-sized clusters, white as flags signalling surrender.
  • August 18, 2024
    Everything drips and glistens after last night’s storm. Red-bellied woodpeckers exchange calls then lapse into silence. A distant train.
  • August 18, 2023
    Just after 8:00, the sun breaks through the clouds and a breeze springs up. From the powerline, the hollow knocks of a pileated woodpecker breakfasting on ants.
  • August 18, 2022
    Crystal-clear, with leaves still wet from rain: I carry a chair up into the woods, luxuriate in the shimmering green and gold.
  • August 18, 2021
    Rain and warblers. An earth-shaking blast from the quarry two miles away. The soft susurrus of tree crickets.

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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