John Pepin, Michigan Department of Natural Resources

The snow falls soft, and I close my eyes and spin around slowly with my face turned to the sky. Whether rain or snow, it always feels good to feel precipitation on my face, especially when it’s coming down so softly.

Raindrops don’t live very long, but they can do a lot of good. Their big fall from the clouds to Earth only takes a handful of seconds.

Even if a raindrop doesn’t hit a plant or a tree or a river or lake, helping to nourish those things to grow, if it only hits my face, it’s making at least one person feel good for a few seconds.

One of my favorite times to be outdoors is when it just starts raining.

There often seems to be a hushed silence of everything before the raindrops start falling. When they start coming down, the sound of their landing on everything is a type of white noise I find comforting.

Whether those raindrops land on the water, the mud, a roof, blacktop or leaves on the trees, the effect is the same – it brings me peace and solace.

In that sense, with snowfall, it’s almost the opposite. It’s the fact that snow falling makes virtually no noise whatsoever that provides the peaceful feeling.

I think they way the snowflakes themselves fall from the sky, often drifting slowly like goose down, lends a kind of psychological signaling to us to notice the calm moment and allow it to seep inside of us.

There have been so many times that I’ve walked outside and not known I was heading into falling rain or snow. When I did, my entire experience in those moments changed.

It is like if I was to walk outside and there were flowers blooming everywhere, all at once. Wow. That’s what the rain is like for me.

I am less inclined to be as welcoming of snowfall because of the shoveling often associated with those incidents. It used to be fun as a kid. Now, it’s more of a pain than anything else.

Over the past couple of days, I was able to experience rain and snow falling.

The first day, the air was still very warm for this time of year, yet it still held a damp chill when it wrapped itself around me.

It was unusual to see the yard sporting so much grass this late in the year.

The next day, the snow came softly with only light whispers of delicate winds.

On the third day, the wind howled and roared and made the trees sway back and forth like skyscrapers in an earthquake.

In between the rippling gusts, the snow tried to continue falling as lightly as it had before the winds arrived. Only a couple inches of snow collected on the ground – just enough for Christmastime.

On the first day, I was walking out to the mailbox when I encountered another one of nature’s incredible experiences.

I saw a large flock of birds, silhouetted against the sky, fly up from the tops of the maple trees all at once, moving across the sky as one unit – like mercury rolling across a tabletop.

They flew this way and then back.

They then descended quickly and landed in a tree on the far side of the yard.

I walked over to where they were.

As I approached, they all flew up into the sky again, but they came back.

They landed in a crabapple tree where they collectively were making a whirring-type call as they worked quickly to devour as many of the crabapples as they could.

I was standing less than 10 feet away from the tree. They did not fly from me and allowed me to watch and listen and soak up the beautiful moments.

They were almost close enough to touch.

These were Bohemian waxwings – named for their habit of wandering widely to areas south, including Canada and the northern Lower 48 states – arriving here most commonly in wintertime from Alaska.

They look similar to cedar waxwings common here in summer, with the Bohemian variety having a brownish orange patch under their tail section.

I debated on whether to head into the house for my camera and to let other occupants of the house know what was going on outside.

I waited and watched as the birds continued to eat, dropping parts of the fruit to the ground. The flock numbered 100 or more.

I had only seen a group this large once before. It was several years ago when Bohemian waxwings had descended upon the crabapple trees in front of the Marquette County Courthouse in Marquette.

To see this many birds in my own backyard, so close, and as comfortable as they were with me, was something I considered a fine early Christmas present.

I decided to go to the house for my camera. When I got there, I discovered the battery in the video camera had run down having not been used lately.

Others in the house thought the sighting of the birds was cool, but they didn’t jump up and race outside or anything.

I get it.

It’s not the same type of experience for them. The same could be said for things they are into that I am perhaps only lukewarm about. I can see why it’s cool for them though.

I have never kept a birdwatcher’s life list, but I have a great memory of the places where I have seen most birds for the first time, especially if it is anything rare or out of its range.

I can close my eyes and recall all kinds of details about the day, who I was with, what we had done before or afterwards.

I will never forget this wonderful encounter with this large group of waxwings, as I never forgot that previous Saturday morning, on another cloudy day like this one outside the county courthouse.

The older I get, things like the waxwings are among the best Christmas gifts I can receive. They won’t make me fatter, and I won’t have to resolve to give them up after New Year’s Day.

Other great gifts include time to rest and relax in front of a crackling fire, time well-spent with my Queen of Shebis and good food to eat and drink that will definitely make me fatter – resolutions be damned.

We could lay on the floor with just the Christmas tree lit and listen to the sounds of our old house. Maybe we will hear the wintry winds, bucking and hucking things into the woods, while we are warm, comfortable and cozy inside.

By this time of the year, it’s hard to know what day it is as everything seems to be wrapped up in or around the holidays.

I will try my best to make everything I can simpler over these next couple of weeks. The less of just about anything, the better.

So, look for me to be trying to get outside as much as I can.

I want to visit some places that are usually tougher to get to this time of year.

I need to replenish the dehydration of my spirit with the things nature alone can provide. I need to find myself yet again in nature.

I also want to spend a lot of time reading, listening to music.

Really, I have so many things I want to do but struggle to find time for them all during the year. So, in that way, the time off over the holidays is another great Christmas gift that I really appreciate getting.

This year has been so strange and challenging in so many ways.

Just recalling some of the events makes me shudder and shake my head.

As rough as it’s been, it seems like the rollercoaster is just in its early climbing stage.

Peace on Earth, goodwill to everyone and nothing more.

EDITOR’S NOTE: 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.