“They say hope it springs eternal in a young man’s breast and every time you turn around they’re puttin’ it to the test.” – Steve Forbert

As I looked up the slope, I could see snow on the ground had slowly receded into a narrow and thin, irregular shape of cold, white nothingness.

This was the place where wintertime’s footsteps finally stopped and its gasping and withered carcass dropped into a bed of dead leaves and grasses – things it had buried in its wild and youthful days, nearly six months ago.

There were other places like this, but this was mine.

As I walked slowly around what was left of this once powerful and mighty giant that howled and screamed south and east across more than a hundred miles of open waters to these rugged and fair shores, I shuddered.

My mind swept back over some of those seemingly endless stormy winter days and nights. In those days of limited light and sunshine, gloomy weather reports packed with hazards, watches, warnings, closures, delays and canceling directed our movements.

Wintry weather would even be blamed for several human deaths over those months.

And now, this behemoth whose monstrous raging drifted and blanketed countless square miles of countryside and cities and towns in snow and ice, snapped and bent mighty trees to the ground and blacked out electric power to thousands over and over, was manifesting itself as a single pile of soft and melting slush.

“Good riddance,” I said, as I turned my boot sideways and kicked the snow pile. Small pieces of ice and snow showered the fir trees around me, further diminishing the strength of what was left of winter.

When she’s young, wintertime is a beautiful lady who wears a long and glimmering gown that trails in sparkles behind her. She has an icy stare, but it’s inviting. To feel the cold air settle as she gets comfortable in her surroundings is a welcomed and wonderful occasion to experience.

But long about the end of February, her beauty tends to fade and many like me are less inclined to gaze favorably upon her. She responds in fits of flurries and blows and typically at least a couple more showings of her power to deliver tremendous storms.

However, as is the case for any of us, time is not on her side. Here in late April, while she claws desperately at the earth beneath her, a gentle breeze greets me with a friendly lilt.

Early this morning, in the darkness a little past 3 a.m., I stood outside looking at the sky above me. The northern lights were flickering like a neon-green fire.

At times, large sections of the sky seemed to be throbbing as the mysterious lights gathered, flashed and dissipated, only to reform seconds later.

The aurora borealis is not only associated with wintertime, but my best viewing of the lights has occurred during those months, particularly in January.

However, this late April display was captivating. I could have remained out there a lot longer than I did, had the tugging of responsibility not been urging me to get back into the house and get some sleep before the workday ahead.

Still, somehow in my head, I associate the lights with the howls and darkness of long, winter nights. I feel tremendously grateful to have seen them even once. I have friends who live in more southern latitudes who have never seen those eerie, colored curtains of shimmering light that seem to have been painted on the skies.

I saw another curious sight this week.

I had a can of some soft, chicken cat food in the kitchen I had been keeping in hopes of setting it out to attract a weasel for the purpose of photographing it. I never did get to try that idea out this winter.

So, I now decided instead put the cat food out under my bird feeders to see what would come to eat it.

My bird feeding station has two vertical, wooden posts that stand a little more than 6 feet tall, with a horizontal wooden crossbar. I have hung various bird feeders from hooks screwed into the bottom side of the crossbar.

I had placed the cat food on the ground underneath the suspended feeders.

Not long after I had come back into the house, I watched a crow land nearby and begin to walk toward the food that was still retaining the shape of the can it had been in.

Crows are interesting and smart birds that experiments have shown can recognize individual human faces.

In this case, I watched the crow approach the food, but then it stopped abruptly as though it had walked into a screen door or some invisible force field.

The bird looked up at the hanging feeders and appeared wary of walking underneath them. It was clear the bird sensed this was some kind of trap.

This behavior seemed to be learned.

How this apprehension was taught became clearer within the next few seconds. The crow made quick glances between the bird feeders hanging above it and the cat food sitting just inches away.

The crow tried to stay back away from the food as far as it could, while reaching out with one leg and its bill to try to snap away a piece of the cat food.

The bird touched the food and snapped backward immediately. It did this a few more times before taking a chomping bite into the pink, soft, meat.

I think this behavior showed the crow had been familiar with snagging food from baited animal traps, especially the kind that snap or trigger whenever something gets close enough to take the food.

With a big chunk of cat food in its bill, the crow flew off to a place a few feet away from the feeding station. Meanwhile, another crow had landed and approached.

This crow did not exhibit the same concern when grabbing the food, but it did appear to be wary of the feeders hanging above its head.

The following day, I tossed out a few crusts of old, dried bread that I had broken into pieces. Again, it was a crow that arrived to avail itself of the easy snack.

This bird approached with no apparent awareness or apprehension of the bird feeders, except to offer a quick glance upward as it walked toward the bread crust.

This crow’s bill was stained with a red coloring I presumed was blood.

The springtime has a sad way of uncovering the faded and rotted carcasses of those animals that perished through those months of the raging wintertime.

Most prominent among these animals are the white-tailed deer. At this time of year, before the greening and flowering of May, it is often common to see crows, eagles, turkey vultures, blue jays and ravens feeding on their withered and winterkilled remains.

This red-billed crow immediately picked up the biggest piece of crust in its bill, but instead of flying off or eating it there, the bird tried to pick up another piece of bread first.

It flew out of view with two pieces. It returned quickly and grabbed another.

This time, I watched the crow fly to a safe distance and land. It then dropped the crust on the ground and picked at it, breaking it into smaller pieces before eating it.

I found all of this very interesting to watch.

Back at the place in the woods where the last vestige of wintertime amounted to a dwindling pile of snow, I found that the skies around me had turned from sunny and blue to gray and white.

The welcoming breeze that had softened my rough edges and brightened my still frozen winter perspective had vanished into thin air.

I stood silently watching around me. I was listening, trying to absorb and sense all that there was to take in. The sounds were those of springtime, as I closed my eyes.

Woodpeckers drummed on tree trunks and the songs of purple finches, dark-eyed juncos, black-capped chickadees and pine siskins were all around.

I took in a deep breath of the fresh air that had been chilled as I stood alongside this snow pile. I walked a little farther through the dead and brown, bare-treed scene.

Within a few minutes I stopped in a grove of trees and then an open meadow.

With my eyes closed again, I sensed a resurrection – a reawakening of not a springtime spirit, but rather, a ghost of winter past.

On a chilly gust from somewhere north came a rush of the wind, gentle in its approach but crushing in its arrival. I began to feel a familiar sensation.

There in the meadow, where shoots of green grass had poked through the dirt, I felt snow upon my face.

Winter might be dead, but its ghost is up and walking around.

I felt my body slump and my head bow in recognition.

I took another deep breath and closed my eyes.

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.