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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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silver-spotted skipper

June 21, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Hot and humid. A silver-spotted skipper draws my eye to a bindweed trumpet, its silent hosannas seemingly aimed at the ancient rose bush.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bindweed, humidity, rose bush, silver-spotted skipper
June 9, 2020 by Dave Bonta

Silver-spotted skippers chase over dame’s-rocket. A catbird balancing on a dead weed stalk plucks a green bug from a blade of grass.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags catbird, dame's-rocket, silver-spotted skipper
June 1, 2016 by Dave Bonta

A silver-spotted skipper flies back and forth in front of the porch a dozen times. A grackle comes in croaking for a drink from the creek.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags common grackle, silver-spotted skipper, stream
July 31, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Cloudless and cool. A red-spotted purple and a silver-spotted skipper work adjacent bergamot heads, whose tubes are beginning to dry up.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bergamot, red-spotted purple, silver-spotted skipper, skippers 2 Comments

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On This Day

  • October 21, 2025
    Dawn turns the western ridge orange, as the roar of traffic from an inversion layer nearly drowns out the waking songbirds—all but the Carolina wren, whose teakettle teakettle teakettle is never quiet.
  • October 21, 2024
    Wind rustling through fallen leaves in the moonlight. When it stops, I can hear the careful footsteps of a deer.
  • October 21, 2023
    In the half-light, a patter of hooves from just inside the woods. The grunts of a buck in rut. A dawn sky coming through the trees.
  • October 21, 2022
    Two degrees below freezing and clear at sunrise. A falling tulip tree leaf lands with an audible tick.
  • October 21, 2021
    The last clear morning for a while. A red-tailed hawk flies through the bare birches, trailed by two outraged crows.

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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