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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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screech owl

July 30, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Clear and still at sunrise, with a sheen of dew on the meadow. A screech owl trills in the distance, nearly drowned out by goldfinches.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American goldfinch, screech owl, sunrise
February 8, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Heavily overcast. A vole briefly surfaces in the yard, all dark fur and blur. A screech owl trills on the ridgetop where the sun should be.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, meadow vole, screech owl, sunrise
November 29, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Snow flurries at dawn, the ground more light than dark. A screech owl trills softly up on the ridge as the phone warms my pocket, installing an update.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dawn, screech owl, snow
November 17, 2024 by Dave Bonta

A slightly flat full moon in the west at dawn. A towhee calls from the dark edge of the woods. Freight trains labor up the valley. Just before full daylight, a screech owl begins to trill.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags moon, screech owl, towhee, train
November 4, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Another large oak has de-leafed, leaving more room for the overcast sky and its patchwork of light and dark. A screech owl trills one last time before full day.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, fall foliage, screech owl
November 2, 2024 by Dave Bonta

A screech owl trilling just before sunrise sets the small birds off. The forsythia at the woods’ edge is once again yellow. The clouds turn red.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, fall foliage, forsythia, screech owl, sunrise
September 26, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Overcast and damp. Anxious notes from a nuthatch following the crash of a rotten limb up in the woods where a screech owl had been trilling.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags screech owl, white-breasted nuthatch
September 2, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Crystal-clear and cool. A screech owl quavers in answer to a distant trill as sun floods the treetops. Autumn is here.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags screech owl
August 3, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Cool and very humid. A thin cloud forms in the treetops, shot through with sun. A screech owl trills.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, screech owl
July 28, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Another cool morning for a day forecast to be hot. A Carolina wren lands on the railing and cocks his head at me. A screech owl calls in the distance.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Carolina wren, screech owl
February 3, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Cold and still. Just as the half-moon‘s light begins to fade, a screech owl trills from the pines, as if to prolong the night.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dawn, screech owl, white pines
December 31, 2023 by Dave Bonta

The cloud ceiling briefly switches to faint pastels: sunrise. One yammering nuthatch and, from down in the hollow, a screech owl’s soft trill.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, screech owl, sunrise, white-breasted nuthatch 2 Comments
September 9, 2023 by Dave Bonta

A whippoorwill interrupted by a screech owl falls silent after three attempts to steal back the stage. When the owl falls silent, a peeper calls.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags screech owl, spring peepers, whippoorwill
August 23, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Cold at dawn, with the lightest of breezes bringing sounds from the east—mostly the limestone quarry’s dull roar. A screech owl trills. The clouds go pink.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, dawn, quarry, screech owl, sunrise
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On This Day

  • October 22, 2025
    Wind breaking up the yellow-bellied clouds. Tulip tree samaras spin like the blades of invisible helicopters—a whole squadron headed out into the meadow.
  • October 22, 2024
    Orange light seeps down the western ridge. The half moon high overhead has been abandoned by its entourage of stars. A crow sits in a newly bare walnut tree, yelling.
  • October 22, 2023
    After a windy night, the forest is looking decidedly threadbare in its coat of many colors, illuminated each time the sun finds a hole in the clouds.
  • October 22, 2022
    Clear and still. I watch the sun inch through the half-turned canopies of the oaks. A chipmunk begins his morning chant.
  • October 22, 2021
    Gloomy with a few drops of rain. I spot a new-to-me Virginia creeper six feet from the porch: that crimson.

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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