screech owl – Page 5 – The Morning Porch

January 29, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Like a familiar word in the middle of a speech in some other language: through the roar of traffic from over the ridge, a screech owl calls.

November 8, 2007 by Dave Bonta

Dawn finds the first snow — a faint dusting. It’s very still. Down in the pines, a screech owl quavers. The slow footfalls of a deer.

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.