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Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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robber fly

June 1, 2020 by Dave Bonta

Another cloudless morning. A pair of mating robber flies joined at the rear like a pushmi-pullyu fly past, wings a-shimmer in the sun.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags robber fly
August 28, 2013 by Dave Bonta

Nothing but the sound of rain—or rather, the sound of everything being struck by the rain. A robber fly zigzags into the woods.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags rain, robber fly 1 Comment
June 5, 2011 by Dave Bonta

Overcast and cool. A cerulean warbler sounds excited as always—that rising buzz. The bright orange of a robber fly crossing the yard.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cerulean warbler, robber fly 2 Comments
June 17, 2010 by Dave Bonta

A robber fly rides a wind-blown leaf like a sailor on the deck of a heaving ship, sun catching the life-preserver orange of its thorax.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags robber fly
May 3, 2008 by Dave Bonta

The air smells of rain. A large robber fly buzzes into my weed garden and lands on the underside of a dame’s-rocket leaf.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dame's-rocket, garden, robber fly

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On This Day

  • September 16, 2025
    A knife-thin moon fades into the dawn sky. The only cloud huddles in the bottom corner of the meadow, where a phoebe is calling.
  • September 16, 2024
    Sun in the top of the tall tulip poplar—yellow crowning yellow. The last nighttime cricket falls silent. Off through the thinning woods, new chinks of sky.
  • September 16, 2022
    Cold (46F) with thin, high clouds. Black walnuts knocking on the roof. A red-tailed hawk drops in to visit the squirrels.
  • September 16, 2021
    Overcast and rainy. in the dim light, sunrise is evidenced only by the appearance of mosquitoes. One after another they land on my knuckles.
  • September 16, 2020
    Sun grown vague with haze from the burning of the west. The drone note of tree crickets, so much more introspective than cicadas.

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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