mallard

March 29, 2011

Dave Bonta March 29, 2011 2

A pair of ducks fly silently through the trees: the mallards who return every spring to nest on the mountain, a mile from the nearest pond.

Dave Bonta March 14, 2010

A pair of mallards—probably the ones who nest every year in the field—are dabbling in the flooded creek, here, there, like connoisseurs.

Dave Bonta April 2, 2009

In the half-light, a mallard duck flies quacking past the porch. A turkey gobbles. Welcome to April weirdness! Winter’s such serious stuff.

Dave Bonta April 1, 2008

At mid-morning, the trill of a screech owl. The sun struggles to shine; blurry shadows appear. A crow flies over quacking like a mallard.

February 22, 2024
Overcast at sunrise, but the cloud lid lifts enough for the sun to glimmer through when it crests the ridge. Saturday’s snow is looking threadbare—a…
February 22, 2023
Just enough thinning of clouds for a classic, red-in-the-morning wash of mauve in the east, where quarry trucks are loud with their first loads.
February 22, 2022
Gray with occasional showers. Distant crows. The face that I can’t unsee in the big red maple trunk with its expression of perpetual dismay.
February 22, 2021
Snowstorm. The hammer-blows of a pileated woodpecker on what must be a very hollow dead tree. How annoyed I’d be if it were a human…
February 22, 2019
The sun grows and shrinks as the clouds change in thickness. Two wrens pop out at once from under the porch, one on each side—vociferous.