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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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woodcock

April 1, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Rain and fog linger from a pre-dawn thunderstorm as the sky brightens. The nasal calls of woodcocks mingle with a torrent of robin song.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American robin, dawn, fog, rain, woodcock
March 23, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Fog and scattered showers. The last few woodcock peents overlap with phoebes—two of them already, trying to out-sing each other.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, phoebe, rain, sunrise, woodcock
March 16, 2016March 15, 2016 by Dave Bonta

At first light, off in the fog, the weird, nasal calls of timberdoodles. One launches into the air with a whistling of wings.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, killdeer, woodcock
March 30, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Cold with low rain clouds at dawn. Over the noise from I-99, the nasal mating calls of that shoreless shorebird, the American woodcock.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags clouds, woodcock

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On This Day

  • January 31, 2025
    Fog thickens as the rain eases off. The sodden snowpack shrinks, fitting the ground more closely, clinging to each mound and divot.
  • January 31, 2024
    Another gloomy dawn, a few degrees below freezing. The sound of an animal returning to its home under my house. Standing up to look, I…
  • January 31, 2023
    A skim of snow overnight; a front has blown in and the birds are so much quieter. But a cold, gray morning is fine for…
  • January 31, 2022
    Bitter cold. A garlic mustard skeleton hanging over the small hole in the yard that goes down to an underground stream is shaggy with frost.
  • January 31, 2021
    The advanced scouts for a promised snowstorm. A squirrel gallops across the porch roof and back, sounding like a very small, unshod horse.

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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