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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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raven

October 12, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Another cool and cloudless morning. The hollow echoes with the croaks of ravens. A pileated woodpecker taps on the side of my house.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags pileated woodpecker, raven
September 24, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Another cloudless morning. Chipmunks chase each other through a bar of sunlight on the forest floor. The distant, metallic calls of a raven.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags chipmunks, raven
September 19, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Even unseen, the raven crying rawk rawk from high overhead makes the flat white sky more interesting. In the yard, a monarch’s regal orange.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags monarch butterfly, raven
March 3, 2015 by Dave Bonta

I come out to find my chair at the end of the porch and turned to the north. A jay is doing his best to reply to a raven’s imperious croaks.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags blue jays, raven, wind
February 6, 2015 by Dave Bonta

The only tracks on the road are mine, and the only clouds are right where the sun is. I hear heavy wingbeats followed by a raven’s croak.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, raven, snow 1 Comment
January 16, 2015 by Dave Bonta

A raven croaks somewhere above the ridge. Snow fine as flour. A Brownian cloud of small birds scuds over the treetops: pine siskins.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags pine siskin, raven, snow, snowflakes 1 Comment
December 26, 2014 by Dave Bonta

The sky is clearing, the low-angled, mid-morning sun illuminating the woods for minutes at a time. Finches in the birches. A distant raven.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American goldfinch, black birch, raven
December 21, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Jays, crows, and a raven: the solstice soundtrack. When I open my laptop, a red bead of a ladybug is huddled among the black keys.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American crow, blue jays, ladybugs, raven, solstice 1 Comment
November 2, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Windy and overcast, with a few flakes of snow in the air. Yellow leaves peel off the aspens as I watch. Two ravens croak back and forth.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags quaking aspen, raven, snowflakes, wind
April 29, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Two ravens in the rain. One flies off to the south and the other lands on a dead branch. It breaks, and the bird flies off to the north.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags rain, raven
April 19, 2014 by Dave Bonta

A red-tailed hawk spirals high on a thermal over the powerline. When I stand up, a raven takes off behind the house—the noise of its wings.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags powerline, raven, red-tailed hawk
April 6, 2014 by Dave Bonta

A cool, cloudless morning. A raven flies over the house headed south, his loud cronks shattering the Sunday silence. Today will be warm.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags raven
February 25, 2014 by Dave Bonta

The nasal alarm calls of nuthatches, one to the south and one to the north. The sun is a yellow stain on a white tablecloth. A silent raven.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags raven, white-breasted nuthatch 1 Comment
January 8, 2014 by Dave Bonta

A flat white sky; no wind. A pair of ravens fly low over the house, their croaks echoing off the ridge. The wrens chitter back and forth.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Carolina wren, raven 2 Comments
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On This Day

  • August 22, 2025
    Cool and clearing. Dew drips from the porch roof onto the orange jewelweed, which this morning for the first time receives no visits from a hummingbird.
  • August 22, 2024
    Clear, cold, and still. A hummingbird finds the one wild bergamot blossom hiding next to the porch and circles its purple mop-head, tonguing a dozen tubes.
  • August 22, 2023
    A gray squirrel with a nearly white tail scampering up the road draws my attention to the white snakeroot—banks of it just coming into bloom.
  • August 22, 2022
    Overcast with a shimmer of light rain. A red-eyed vireo still calls at the woods’ edge. The thud of a black walnut onto a roof.
  • August 22, 2021
    A few minutes after moonset, and the ground fog is still aglow. A screech owl’s monotone trill.

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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