The Morning Porch

Dave Bonta — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 10:54:45 +0000

Humid, cool and overcast at sunrise — an orange glow. Two thin deer wander through the meadow at the edge of the woods, lowering their heads for a mouthful of bracken, some grass, a goldenrod tip …

Dave Bonta — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 12:42:12 +0000

Clear and cool. The wheezing of a gnatcatcher from the tallest walnut tree. A gangly hangingfly comes fluttering under the eaves.

Dave Bonta — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 12:32:33 +0000

Cool and still damp from yesterday afternoon’s downpour. Goldfinches go chittering through the treetops. Drinking the last of my tea in silence, I feel the absense of a resident Carolina wren pair—those endlessly enthusiastic assertions, and the female’s succinct replies.

Dave Bonta — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 13:39:36 +0000

Faint rumors of a storm at midmorning; the sun briefly goes in. The big tulip tree at the woods’ edge raises a thousand yellow cups of nectar to the white sky and its winged legions of beetles.

Dave Bonta — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 12:52:18 +0000

Sun and thin clouds—and almost autumnal feeling to the air. But a hooded warbler’s insistent call quickly dispells that impression. A groundhog pops up beside the porch, sees me and disappears again.

Dave Bonta — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 13:04:18 +0000

Mid-morning, and a small fly warms itself on the black keys of my laptop. The crow family makes its usual racket off in the sun-stuck woods. Vireos and a wood pewee reiterate their territorial claims.

Dave Bonta — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 11:54:40 +0000

A yellow-throated vireo sings, right below the sun flooding through the canopy to half blind me. I hear the deer before I see her: a cracked twig, the sound of chewing.

Dave Bonta — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 12:46:04 +0000

A small plane with a loud motor is the only thing in the sky besides the sun. In its wake, the distant cooing of a dove. I notice that the dead heads now outnumber the living in my iris patch.

Dave Bonta — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 11:32:33 +0000

With the forest in full leaf, I have to wait for the sun as it glistens in the treetops, stirred by a breeze and the periodical outpourings of an oriole.

Dave Bonta — Sun, 31 May 2026 12:45:55 +0000

Bright sun and cedar waxwings whistling in the top of the tall black locust at the woods’ edge, which I see has finally almost leafed out.

Dave Bonta — Sat, 30 May 2026 12:22:15 +0000

The third cystal-clear, cool morning in a row. I block the sun with my hand to watch illuminated grains of dust and pollen stream past in the breeze. A silent hen turkey crosses the road, intent on breakfast.

Dave Bonta — Fri, 29 May 2026 13:36:44 +0000

Another perfect morning, the air still so clear I can follow the progress of sunlit gnats on the other side of the yard. A pileated woodpecker drums a quarter mile away. A vireo says “vireo” once and stops.

Dave Bonta — Thu, 28 May 2026 12:05:36 +0000

A cold front that began blowing in just before dawn has brought crystal clarity not just to the air but seemingly also to each bird call. Two wood thrushes tangle at the woods’ edge and retreat, each singing short phrases as if uncertain how their whole song goes.

Dave Bonta — Wed, 27 May 2026 12:03:03 +0000

Light rain. A large bumblebee buzzes past. The phoebe keeps making his sorties from the ring of old fencing around a volunteer red oak seedling, which no doubt appreciates the extra fertilizer.

Dave Bonta — Tue, 26 May 2026 12:36:42 +0000

Sun through thin clouds. A female cardinal foraging under the lilac picks up a twig, examines it, and sets it down again. Through the lilac limbs I spot the long legs of a deer picking her way across the road bank.

Dave Bonta — Mon, 25 May 2026 11:54:27 +0000

After hard rain in the night, the creek is high and babbles incoherently. The red squirrel runs past my feet with growing confidence in my harmlessness, only its ears poking up above the railing that separates us.

Dave Bonta — Sun, 24 May 2026 13:31:14 +0000

Rain tapers off by mid-morning, each iris leaf laden with shining encapsulations of the white sky. A small dinosaur known as a great-crested flycatcher calls at the woods’ edge.

Dave Bonta — Sat, 23 May 2026 13:08:01 +0000

A downpour tapers into hard rain and I can hear the birds again. Whatever the cerulean warbler might be asking, he doesn’t seem satisfied with a redstart’s insistent response.

Dave Bonta — Fri, 22 May 2026 13:19:01 +0000

Overcast and cool. In the yard below the porch, a scattering of white dewberry blossoms that I take for bird droppings at first, with phoebes flying back and forth from a nest somewhere close by that I have yet to find.

Dave Bonta — Thu, 21 May 2026 13:36:12 +0000

Almost all the local marmots appear within the space of a minute: a groundhog pokes its head up beside the porch, a chipmunk is chased out of the black walnut tree beside the road by a gray squirrel, and a red squirrel scolds from the springhouse.

Dave Bonta — Wed, 20 May 2026 11:28:14 +0000

Neither too cool nor too warm, with clouds yet to find the sun. The irises are at their peak of blooming in my front garden, and at the woods’ edge where several yellow ones survive as relics from an era of moved lawns and decorative fences fifty years ago.

Dave Bonta — Tue, 19 May 2026 12:31:38 +0000

After most of the other birds have run out of steam, a brown thrasher appears at the woods’ edge, singing loudly and repeating each phrase as he does, like a cheerleader for the sun just clearing the treetops.

Dave Bonta — Mon, 18 May 2026 12:10:03 +0000

An hour past sunrise, a gnatcatcher picks off the few survivors of a tent caterpillar colony in a black cherry at the woods’ edge. A hummingbird circles my red bandanna.

Dave Bonta — Sun, 17 May 2026 11:14:21 +0000

Sun glimmering through a scrim of cirrus. The aftermath of the dawn chorus isn’t exactly silent; it just has longer pauses for breath… until the goldfinches go gadding about through the treetops like a rickety circus.

Dave Bonta — Sat, 16 May 2026 12:33:30 +0000

Sun from under a lid of cloud illuminates the western ridge. A hooded warbler just inside the woods’ edge moves into the yard as the sky clears, keeping up his insistent chant for more than an hour.

Dave Bonta — Fri, 15 May 2026 13:11:06 +0000

Cool and mostly overcast. A phoebe hawks insects low to the ground. An hour later, I’m pleased to find I can now i.d. a yellow-throated vireo’s call—so much hoarser and more rushed than its red-eyed or blue-headed cousins.

Dave Bonta — Thu, 14 May 2026 10:46:36 +0000

Heavily overcast and cold. A half hour past sunrise, only a field sparrow, a red-eyed vireo and an ovenbird still sing. A few goldfinches chitter in the treetops.

Dave Bonta — Wed, 13 May 2026 14:56:40 +0000

A gloomy morning punctuated by brief showers. I look up at one point to spot a male hummingbird rocketing back and forth above the creek, performing for a female perched in a black elderberry bush that has just leafed out.

Dave Bonta — Tue, 12 May 2026 11:16:22 +0000

Cold, but no frost. A hummingbird just after sunrise buzzes up to a dame’s-rocket blossom, turns and flies off. The sun gathers strength in the treetops.

Dave Bonta — Mon, 11 May 2026 11:52:33 +0000

Cool and nearly clear, with cirrus coming in after sunrise, and the sun like an old soldier fading away as a truck rounds the bend of the road, hauling a new roof for the barn.