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Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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indigo bunting

May 24, 2013 by Dave Bonta

Swarms of spinning maple keys fly this way and that. An indigo bunting bobs up and down in the lilac, swiping his bill against the branch.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags indigo bunting, lilac, red maple, wind 2 Comments
May 17, 2013 by Dave Bonta

Non-stop noise from the indigo buntings. One of them drops into the deer-ravaged rosebush and flutters madly, subduing some luckless insect.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags indigo bunting, multiflora rose
June 12, 2012 by Dave Bonta

An indigo bunting lands on a grass stalk and sinks from view. A white moth on a white column trembles for an instant when the rain returns.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags indigo bunting, moths, rain 1 Comment
May 21, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A female indigo bunting drops into the cherry tree to snack on tiny tent caterpillars, reaching daintily into their vase-shaped nest.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cherry tree, indigo bunting, tent caterpillars
May 13, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Two male indigo buntings, twice as blue as the sky, clash in the air and land on adjacent branches. One sings, the other flies off.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags indigo bunting
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On This Day

  • September 22, 2025
    The first rain in weeks begins tapping on the roof at dawn. Then it’s here in a rush, the bone-dry leaf duff rattling into a roar.
  • September 22, 2024
    Under a gray sky, small birds move silently through green and gold leaves, while the wren yammers away behind the shed.
  • September 22, 2023
    Cool but not quite as clear, with a thin, high scrim of clouds and the incessant beeping of quarry trucks, to which a migrant phoebe briefly responds.
  • September 22, 2022
    Lightning flickers on the horizon at dawn. The dull glow of the crescent moon’s darkened bulk reminds me that the earth also shines.
  • September 22, 2021
    Sunrise somewhere over the rain. In the dripping forest canopy, a dark card-shuffle of wings.

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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