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Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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white-crowned sparrow

May 5, 2016 by Dave Bonta

A catbird in his dapper gray drives an indigo bunting from the yard. Two migrant white-crowned sparrows beside the road load up on grit.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags catbird, indigo bunting, white-crowned sparrow
February 24, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Rain has erased the last patches of snow. The lilac bush gives birth to a cardinal, a wren, four white-crowned sparrows and a chipmunk.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cardinal, Carolina wren, chipmunks, lilac, snow, white-crowned sparrow 4 Comments
November 2, 2011 by Dave Bonta

I listen closely to the sparrow calls, trying to hear the white-crowned’s pink, and sit long enough to watch the hoarfrost turn to shine.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags hoarfrost, white-crowned sparrow 1 Comment

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On This Day

  • September 5, 2025
    Inside a white whale of fog, the trees drip and drop yellow leaves, and the sun is felt more than seen, with a faint wash of blue beyond.
  • September 5, 2024
    A dawn too cold for crickets, and still except where a squirrel makes a branch tremble. From the top of a black locust, a hairy woodpecker’s nasal chirps.
  • September 5, 2023
    Through a hole in the forest canopy, a ray of sun illuminates one tall goldenrod in the springhouse meadow. An indescribably sweet odor of ripeness and rich earth.
  • September 5, 2022
    Rain prolongs the early-morning light till well past 10:00. A chipmunk appears in the garden, bustling among the drenched weeds.
  • September 5, 2021
    Rain easing off by mid-morning. At one end of the lilac, I spot some dark leaves: buckthorn, I think, grown 10 feet tall without my noticing.

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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