“And later as I was driving, and the sky was getting light, and the sun came through the trees, I had a fine memory, such a fine memory,” – Bob Seger

For those unaware, the first signs of autumn have already appeared in our skies with the southward flights of thousands upon thousands of migrating birds, headed for tropical or South American destinations.

What a short summer it has been. Some of the already tired fliers have appeared briefly to rest along vacant summertime beaches or secluded mud flats, river edges or lakeshores.

If you are among those aware and observing this seasonal transition, there is already a solemn and hollow absence detected in everything, all around – at least for me. Check the forests, wet with rain, search the fields and the river valleys, go up into the hills and across the plains. You can’t miss it. It grabs ahold of you and shakes you. This feeling or awareness will deepen and heighten from now until the end of October when we will reach the barrier between light and dark, the tremendous shift from autumn toward winter – light to darkness – on All Hallow’s Eve.

This absence now begun creates a great drawing, a pulling away of energy and life that can be felt in the pit of my stomach or in my chest, clear back to my spine. I think that maybe it is some sort of sadness or grieving for the summer nearly dead and gone or the many weeks and months to be spent before another summertime is born from one more in a long line of chilly springs. The thought of the cold and dark ahead until that time makes me shudder.

But that’s not today.

And so, I walk – to defy or try to counter the wet and cold I feel inside today. There’s still time to enjoy, renew and reimagine this countryside before it is soon to be aflame with the crisp and fiery red, velvety and delicious orange and sweet, golden yellows of showy autumn. The river is gray today I suppose in solidarity with the echoes of emptiness felt throughout these woodlands and the empty nests everywhere. It looks like lead as it flows – fast or slow, pooled or rapidly flowing – bending at the elbows, stretching out wide in the flats. The rocks are nearly ice-cold to the touch here on this granite outcropping overlooking this quiet and misty scene.

I am sure the moose are up and around down there, but they are choosing to keep themselves hidden behind the trees. I saw their tracks, along with those of many deer, on my way up to this lofty perch. On days like this, the loss I feel is real and it is nearly impossible to ignore.

It’s like a dark finger reaches down from the sky to poke me in the chest, letting me know it’s my turn. I sense the absence of all kinds of things. I don’t talk much on these days, which allows me a feeling of freedom inside. I do not honor the otherwise constant pressure to share or to perform or to produce or to pronounce any number of things. To let go of all of that is a gigantic and transcendent relief. I can then find time for myself, to honor myself, to allow myself silence, thought and reflection. These things are so important, but often difficult to find, especially in sufficient quantity or quality.

The sadness is a given I can accept. I look across this wide valley and recall it from sunny days, warm and welcoming. To sit in this very spot to watch the river flow back and forth across the floodplain – in all its azure grandeur, mimicking the color of the sky – is a fine memory that I treasure. I’ve taken pictures of this place on warm autumn days, I guess to try to capture the magnificence of that time.

When I see those pictures now, I remember that day fondly. I guess it worked. Black crows chase each other, cawing loudly and repeatedly, in rolling and taunting flights, tumbling on the winds above the hardwoods. I wonder what they’re squabbling about. I’ve read that crows can remember human faces, have crow nicknames for people, and can remember us for as long as 17 years, especially if we were unpleasant to them.

I have a group of three crows – reliably – which occasionally includes at least two others that I am attempting to form a friendship with. I call them “mi amigos.”

I toss food to them around the same time every day. If I am late, they land in the tall spruces in our yard and caw loudly until I appear outside the back door. The other day, my wife was doing dishes in the kitchen. She called to me in the living room saying, “Your friends are outside calling for you.”

A big adult bald eagle glides into view. Its black wings are stretched out flat. It passes near the crows, but they do not chase as it flies over them, continuing toward the basin formed behind the dam. Down below me, on an old, grown-over gravel road, there is a white-tailed doe walking slowly, stopping occasionally to munch on thimbleberry leaves and berries. She doesn’t see me. Good.

I love moments like this when I can just be out in nature and become a part of everything going on around me, without disturbing every living thing merely with my presence. I don’t want to impose myself on nature, like I’m Frankenstein’s monster or the Kool-Aid Man or some other character busting into the scene, growling or otherwise making my loud and blustery self, known.

I think the whole nature of humankind is intrinsically loud, disruptive, demanding and often destructive. Those are traits that I am not proud of. In the opposite direction of the doe and about 1,000 yards away, I see what first looks like a domestic dog loping along the gravel road. A minute or more of additional observation reveals that it is instead a coyote. It sniffs the ground as it walks. It darts off the road into the tall, browned grasses.

I see it come back out onto the road and then it again dashes into the grass. It does not reappear. It may have caught whatever it was chasing. My ears are soaking in the quiet. Other than the crows, I don’t hear anything else. The river passes below in quiet fashion with slow, long bends.

I know the woods here conceal the presence of at least a couple of old hunting camps, built decades ago. They are seldom occupied. I saw some berry pickers while driving here today, but they have no reason to be up this way. All the berries, in large enough quantity to pick, are located elsewhere. Unlike on some other days, I don’t hear chainsaws buzzing or idling out in the distance today, nor the sound of any cars running over the dirt roads that crisscross the countryside.

So, on those counts, this is a great day. I close my eyes after I lie back onto the crunchy reindeer moss that makes a soft pad beneath me. I am surrounded by a half-dozen jack pines that provide me with shade for my eyes and at least some protection should it begin to rain.

I now sense a soft wind that I didn’t detect with my eyes open. It runs up over the lip of the valley and swirls above the ridgeline to where I’m resting. A warm and soft feeling befalls me, and I begin to drift off to sleep. When I become aware that I’ve dozed off, I don’t know how long it has been, perhaps as much as a half-hour or more.

Five or six Canada geese are honking loudly as they fly over me, headed toward the river. I don’t want to know what they are talking about because it probably has something to do with getting ready to make their way south in the coming weeks. I usually encounter their southern flights when I am out along the riverbanks fishing for fall-run Coho salmon and steelhead.

By those days of latter September, I am wondering why the geese can’t just leave, without having to announce it to anyone who will listen. The worst days are when they are overhead, while there are snowflakes in the air and chilly winds whipping over everything. By then, I am wearing a heavier coat, trying to stay warm and dry.

I walk down the trail through the woods toward my Jeep that is parked off a dirt road flanked by a stand of jack pines. I wonder why transitions – good, bad or almost every kind – pose mental and emotional challenges for humans, especially when this world is full of them. When one ends, another begins.

Ups and downs, all arounds.

Outside in, inside out.

Above all that, I wonder why I seem to be acutely attuned to these changes, and why do I often become so affected by them?

I keep walking.

I see a metallic glint of light through the trees.

That’s my Jeep up ahead.

Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.