The Morning Porch

Dave Bonta — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 13:20:41 +0000

Overcast and still. The bracken in the yard has all turned brown and the stillgrass is reddening, revealing the dark green leaves of a new volunteer spicebush.

Dave Bonta — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 13:38:48 +0000

Breezy and cool, with occasional outbreaks of sunshine. It takes me two hours to work out that the soft clucking sound I’d thought was a hen turkey is actually a branch rubbing against the gutter for the back roof. A chipmunk rummages under my chair, then scuttles back under the small woodpile next to me.

Dave Bonta — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 14:06:51 +0000

Cool and mostly clear, with a wind that keeps the shadows in motion—and the blue jays, too. Each hard gust brings another few acorns rattling down, and the driveway is filling in with walnuts.

Dave Bonta — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:47:12 +0000

Clear and cold. The high-pitched kik-kik-kik of a sharp-shinned hawk elicits a chirr from a red squirrel and a furous denunciation from a crow at the compost pit.

Dave Bonta — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 12:21:08 +0000

Clear and cold, with an inversion layer bringing quarry and highway sounds out of the east. A female Carolina wren ticks quietly from the thick shrubbery around the springhouse. Cold as I am, I luxuriate in the absense of mosquitoes.

Dave Bonta — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 13:05:57 +0000

Breezy and cold, with the last few clouds moving off by 9:00: a morning for blue jays and the random marimba-sound of acorns dropping onto rocks and logs.

Dave Bonta — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 13:56:57 +0000

Drizzle thinning into wind-blown mist by mid-morning. The sky brightens. A pileated woodpecker clings to a skinny locust tree as it sways in the breeze, taps a few times and then tilts her head to the side as if listening for a response.

Dave Bonta — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 12:21:52 +0000

A gloomy morning, except for the wren: the dull mechanical songs of the quarry, the low cloud ceiling, the cold breath of autumn making leaves tremble on their stems.

Dave Bonta — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 13:29:43 +0000

Off and on rain and the sporadic crashes of falling walnuts. I watch a yellow tulip tree leaf tumbling down, end over end, the air slipping through its four Mickey Mouse fingers.

Dave Bonta — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 12:00:37 +0000

Overcast and quiet. A few drops of rain patter in the grass and dead bracken. The enthusiasm of a Carolina wren up by the garage seems wholly unwarranted.

Dave Bonta — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:08:13 +0000

Overcast and cool. A pileated woodpecker flies into the dead top of the tallest black locust in the yard, seemingly oblivious to a swirling conflict between a small flock of local jays and two migrant sharp-shinned hawks. A slow inspection of the treetop turns up nothing worth tapping for, and she flies off, leaving the ... Read more

Dave Bonta — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:56:20 +0000

An hour after the last raindrops, wet leaves glisten as the sun glimmers through thin clouds. The sound of teeth chiseling through a walnut shell. The stems of bent stiltgrass in the meadow begin to redden.

Dave Bonta — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 13:56:22 +0000

Sunny and cool at midmorning, with the smell of woodsmoke drifing up from the valley. The bluejay who stumps the bird app is making his one-of-a-kind call — almost a croon. At random moments, black walnuts drop onto the driveway with a thud.

Dave Bonta — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 11:24:14 +0000

Cold and clear at dawn. At one point a whippoorwill, screech owl and Carolina wren are all calling at the same time. The owl persists for another five minutes, trilling at the woods’ edge. Then a drumroll from a pileated woodpecker, and it is day.

Dave Bonta — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 13:17:47 +0000

Cool and mostly clear at mid-morning. A gray squirrel continuing to scold after the threat has moved on sounds like a rusty hinge. The drone of a single-prop plane fades in the distance.

Dave Bonta — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 12:09:34 +0000

After all-night rain, most of the stiltgrass in the meadow has fallen over, and many of the white snakeroot heads are bent low. And even as some leaves on the trees are turning yellow, others have never looked so bright green.

Dave Bonta — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 11:49:57 +0000

Overcast and cool. Pieces of black walnut husk rain down from a squirrel’s breakfast. I remember the walnut husk maggot fly that landed on my armrest yesterday, its elegant striped wings and strange green eyes.

Dave Bonta — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 11:59:53 +0000

A cool morning with the sky mostly clear and sound out of the east: the limestone quarry’s reverse-chirping trucks, muffled clanks and booms. A squirrel high in the tree next to the road picks a walnut, sniffs it, and lets it fall with a crash.

Dave Bonta — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 13:35:36 +0000

Overcast but bright. Neither warm nor cool. A Cooper’s hawk dives at a squirrel on a walnut tree at the woods’ edge, misses, then takes fright when the squirrel turns and charges at it, and lands on a nearby limb to take stock and ruffle its feathers before taking off.

Dave Bonta — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 12:26:11 +0000

Overcast and cool, with showers of yellow black walnut leaflets in the slightest breeze. A gray squirrel climbs a small tree next to the lilac, presses its snout to each of three walnuts, and climbs back down.

Dave Bonta — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 11:09:34 +0000

A screech owl trilling in the half-dark sounds thinner and more uncertain than usual—a juvenile, perhaps? When it falls silent, a whippoorwill calls, sounding equally tentative, and soon stops. From the woods’ edge, the soft calls of all-night migrants dropping in to rest and forage.

Dave Bonta — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 12:39:34 +0000

Sun glistening in the treetops. Down-hollow, a pileated woodpecker drums on a baritone snag. The first bumblebee visits the jewelweed, no crickets to muffle the hum of her solitary motor.

Dave Bonta — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 10:47:59 +0000

The streak of a meteor below the crescent moon doesn’t reach the thin ground fog. I watch the stars fade until only Rigel remains—Orion’s left foot. It slips from view fifteen minutes before sunrise. A minute later, the first mosquito whines in my ear.

Dave Bonta — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 12:51:55 +0000

A white sky at mid-morning beginning to glow as the clouds thin, while below in the meadow the white snakeroot is beginning to bloom. I find a dogwood sawfly larva from a later instar than yesterday’s fluffy white grubs; this is a proper green caterpillar crawling across my shirt.

Dave Bonta — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:33:13 +0000

Overcast and cool. When I tire of feeding myself to the mosquitoes, I don a bug hat and go into the yard with my phone to identify whatever has been skeletonizing trees and shrubs: angle-lined prominent moth caterpillars on the bigtooth aspen, pinstriped in green but too hairy to be extra twigs, and dogwood sawfly ... Read more

Dave Bonta — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:25:45 +0000

Daybreak comes in a lull between storms. An orange leaf spirals down at the woods’ edge as thunder rumbles off to the east, and now again in the west. A green stink bug crawls under the arm of my green chair.

Dave Bonta — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 11:21:00 +0000

Everything drips from rain in the wee hours. I notice that the white lilac at the woods’ edge is blooming again, and more vigorously then it did in the spring, before months of assault from whatever disease has been decimating its leaves. There’s an almost ghostly presence to these new white inflorescences, appearing alongside a ... Read more

Dave Bonta — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 12:32:01 +0000

Humid, overcast and warm. Half-way between the crickets in the grass and the cicadas in the treetops, the Carolina wren’s teakettle teakettle teakettle lets off steam.

Dave Bonta — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 13:00:36 +0000

At least half the leaves on the walnut trees in my yard have turned yellow now, still glistening from a shower at dawn. The red-eyed vireo who was calling then is still going strong three hours later.

Dave Bonta — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 11:55:30 +0000

Overcast and cool. A sudden thumping under the floor, and a small groundhog goes running out into the garden, followed by the head of a larger groundhog, who turns to look at me over the end of the porch. After a minute-long staring contest, she drops out of sight.