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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

  • August 26, 2025
    Too cold for all but one hardy field cricket. In the meadow, the half-grown twin fawns have a go at their mother’s milk, one on each side. A small flock of geese go over, bugling.
  • August 26, 2024
    A half moon hangs overhead, its light lost to the dawn. A bat makes one last circuit of the yard, where the white tops of snakeroot are beginning to show.
  • August 26, 2023
    A few minutes after six, a whippoorwill calls from just inside the woods. At the very same moment, the first mosquito of the day finds my ear.
  • August 26, 2022
    At 8:15 the sun almost comes out. Half an hour later, it’s still almost out. My faint shadow gives up after the feet.
  • August 26, 2021
    Ten minutes till sunrise. The gibbous moon is losing its glow like a guitar pick thrown from a stage.

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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