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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

  • June 28, 2025
    Overcast and buggy, with the noise of a long-delayed tractor repair underway at the neighbor’s, and a blue jay transitioning from anxiety to alarm.
  • June 28, 2024
    Clear and cold. The beeps of quarry trucks mingle with the shrill calls of red-bellied woodpeckers. Two hummingbirds in a high-speed chase fly out of the woods and up over the house.
  • June 28, 2023
    Overcast and breezy, with a strong smell of burning chemicals. Off in the distance, a brown thrasher is singing whatever pops into his head.
  • June 28, 2021
    Sunny and hot. A catbird skulks in lilac shade. The unfurling beaks of wild garlic point in all directions, like a nervous flock of cranes.
  • June 28, 2020
    The towhee interrupts his window-tapping to attend to fledglings in the tall grass. Tree sparrows in the garden trill as they mate.

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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