Dave Bonta (morningporch)

Dave Bonta

Another of the dead cherry's limbs broke off in the night, leaving just one more forked limb and a cluster of stumps, scabrous with fungi.

Sherry Chandler

Gray as a smudge of newsprint, the pewee flits from twig to twig in the dogwood, calling, calling. It gets no answer I can hear.

Dave Bonta

Just donated to the Wikimedia Foundation. And if I can afford it, believe me, so can you. #keepitfree!

Dave Bonta

A chipping sparrow emerges from the lilac, pursued by the high-pitched cries of nestlings. It lands and wipes its bill on a dead branch.

Dave Bonta

The caution of wild things. Male and female cardinal taking turns bathing in the stream. The chipmunk rising furtively to its hind legs.

Dave Bonta

Cool and clear; mist rising off the trees. From around the corner of the house, the zoom and chatter of a hummingbird's courtship flight.

Dave Bonta

It's not too hot to fight: a robin drives a chipmunk from the lilac. A minute later, a flicker drives a downy woodpecker off its den tree.

Dave Bonta

Hot and humid. A lone 17-year cicada's uncanny call. Where last night a drunk intruder stumbled in the weeds, a cloud of gnats, hovering.

Dave Bonta

At first light, the sound of deer running through the woods: the crash of hooves, the swish of blossom-heavy branches of mountain laurel.

Dave Bonta

A slight breeze brings a shower of petals from the tulip tree, while a squirrel at the top of the black walnut makes it rain catkins.

Dave Bonta

(And yes, I'm enough of a nature nerd to have an ID on the bug: http://bugguide.net/node/view/16391 )

Dave Bonta

A black leaf-footed bug squats head-down on a porch post. Two silver-spotted skippers circle and chase, eponymous spots glinting in the sun.

Dave Bonta

A catbird taps at the dining room window—the same glass that taunts the female cardinal. A tiny shadow darts through the grass: meadow vole.

Dave Bonta

The first peony, which opened yesterday, is too small to topple from the weight of rain. It merely tilts its flushed face toward the woods.

Dave Bonta

Drizzle. Just as I get the binoculars out, the cedar waxwings all take off whistling from the tulip tree and its outrageous yellow blooms.

Dave Bonta

A pileated woodpecker lands on the dead elm right beside the flicker den hole and knocks twice. A flicker pokes her head out. He flies off.

Dave Bonta

Six nuthatches—parents and fledglings—scour the trees from top to bottom, soft calls communicating who knows what instructive tidbits.

Dave Bonta

Two maple keys dangle in an old spiderweb underneath the porch railing, like uneaten remnants of some unfortunate winged creature.

Dave Bonta

The groundhog emerges from her sun-flooded burrow beside the porch and whistles in alarm. The shadow of a tiger swallowtail crosses my legs.

Dave Bonta

Sun in the treetops. A squirrel hangs head-down from a walnut branch to eat the flowers. My lover combs the tangles from her long hair.