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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

  • August 1, 2025
    Overcast and cool. At the edge of the cattail marsh, among the smartweed and tearthumb, I spot a lone stalk of purple loosestrife rocking gently in the breeze.
  • August 1, 2024
    Half an hour past sunrise, a hummingbird and a hoverfly both find my head to be an object of interest. A red-bellied woodpecker cackles from a tall locust.
  • August 1, 2023
    Sun glimmering through thin, high clouds. The distant rumble of a train. In the long grass, each drop of dew begins to shine.
  • August 1, 2022
    Overcast at sunrise. A meadowhawk dragonfly zips back and forth, inches above the rain-soaked vegetation.
  • August 1, 2021
    Goldfinches like a cheering section for the sun. A hummingbird hovers 18 inches from my face, then goes around for a side view.

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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