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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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rose-breasted grosbeak

May 9, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Cool and increasingly cloudy as the sun clears the treetops—a bright spot in the gray. A rose-breasted grosbeak sings. Chipmunk metronomes go in and out of sync.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags chipmunks, clouds, rose-breasted grosbeak
May 1, 2022 by Dave Bonta

After insomnia, watching the rain come in and whatever brightness the morning might’ve had dwindling to just rose-breasted grosbeak song.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags rain, rose-breasted grosbeak
April 29, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Sun through a thin milk of clouds. A lull in birdsong, punctuated by a didactic ovenbird and the rose-breasted grosbeak’s brilliant warble.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, ovenbird, rose-breasted grosbeak
May 30, 2010 by Dave Bonta

A rose-breasted grosbeak flutters up from the creek singing clear, cool notes. A cranefly drifts through a sunbeam, carrying its legs.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cranefly, rose-breasted grosbeak, stream

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On This Day

  • September 13, 2025
    Under a cacophony of jays, a doe and two fawns with their spots all gone graze just inside the edge of the woods. One does a sudden dance, spinning around to elude a fly.
  • September 13, 2024
    6:24. The cardinal sings a few times and falls silent. 6:26. The whippoorwill calls a few times and falls silent. 6:29. The Carolina wren starts up.
  • September 13, 2023
    Cool and quiet, once all the newly arrived night travelers have stopped chirping. Patches of blue sky appear. A goldfinch twitters half-heartedly.
  • September 13, 2022
    Deep blue sky with last night’s rain still glistening in the understory. In the sun-drenched canopy, four crows sit yelling at a raven.
  • September 13, 2021
    Breezy and overcast at dawn. From up in the woods, the declarative WHO! of a barred owl. The last katydid rattles to a stop.

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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