JOHN PEPIN

“C’est la vie say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell,” – Chuck Berry

There’s a wet, wooden post at the edge of a fallow field where a blackbird sits. The post is positioned at a corner, and it holds up two rusted strands of barbed-wire fencing.

The blackbird’s colors show springtime – stunning red and mustard yellow epaulette decorations radiate against his dark and smoothed, slicked black-blue feathers.

But he’s not feeling like singing this morning.

A week ago, with temperatures soaring, the early mornings were filled with birdsong echoing through the skies. Today, a single male robin is heard chortling in the distance from a hidden promontory.

Even at night, the sounds of yipping coyotes and honking geese paired off and posted along the rim of the still-largely frozen lake were heard almost constantly.

Last night, there was only a stunning silence.

I got to wondering what had changed.

The only real difference I could discern is the much colder temperatures this week and the return of snowflakes to our skies.

I know those facts were disappointing to me — like having a cold and heavy wet blanket draped around your shoulders that soaks on down to your insides.

But was this situation enough to make a blackbird turn blue?

I wondered.

The field stretched out beyond the blackbird was either inundated with snowmelt or covered in a fresh, white pasting of snow.

Pet owners often talk about their animals having identifiable personalities, emulating human emotions, including sadness and gladness.

Could the same be true of wild birds and animals too, or is this notion of animal personalities merely a human construct?

An internet post by zoologist Luis Villazon from BBC Science Focus Magazine said animals can indeed show signs of being depressed, but making an accurate diagnosis is more complex than for humans.

“Questions regarding the mental state of animals inevitably run onto a philosophical sandbank because we cannot be sure how self-aware animals are. We assume that other people think more or less the same way we do because language allows us to describe our thoughts,” Villazon said. “We don’t have enough of a shared vocabulary with animals to apply this test and humans are notoriously prone to projecting their own emotions and feelings onto animals.

“Having said that, many mammals have been observed exhibiting the symptoms of clinical depression (including lethargy, compulsive behaviors, disrupted appetite and sexual interest and even self-harm). Zoo animals in particular are prone to this.”

So, perhaps the blackbird staring back at me from his post at the corner of this wild and forgotten farmer’s field isn’t singing because he’s feeling the same way I am when I look out over the newly fallen snow – let’s call it crestfallen.

Meanwhile, not far away, in a stand of red cedar trees, the evening grosbeaks didn’t get the memo. They seem happy as larks.

They are singing loudly as they feed on the cones. Their voices are somewhat understated, but quite beautiful. To me, the sound is similar to that of some tightly bells or a whistle of some kind.

I walk beneath one of the trees and look up through the branches. There are males and females here. I speak up toward them, telling them that they seem happy and that they sound beautiful.

Two males and one female drop down closer to me on the branches as if they are really listening to what I am saying, and perhaps understanding.

I return to the hillside area where I recently saw roughly 40 deer crowded along the bare crags of a small bluff, resting and sunning themselves on this south-facing slope.

With snow covering much of everything else, the few dried up and crumpled leaves of autumn, along with anything else edible to the deer was being chomped.

On this day, the deer had left the bluff for lower country along a river that flowed north down a glide where a waterfall once stood and then out under the ice of a still sleeping lake.

The deer were in a group, moving closely together. Many of their rank seemed to be yearling deer, which I took as an encouraging sign that they had been able to survive the winter that had been severe in some parts of the region.

There’s an old house here that the residents don’t often visit. There’s a long driveway that leads down to a place where that drive intersects with a dirt road. It is in this area that the group of 20-25 deer were walking about the grounds of the home.

Clearly, they had claimed it for themselves now.

They looked ragged and tired from the wintertime, which still wasn’t finished with them yet. A few of the deer stood alongside trees and seemed to be leaning against them.

Others walked along the edge of the driveway, nipping at some fresh shoots of green grass that was protruding through the snow.

One deer walked with an angled stride. Its head was pointed forward but from its shoulders back the deer’s body was off to the left side.

Some of the deer stood very near to me and either weren’t afraid or didn’t have the winter strength left to dash off. They were nibbling whatever they could find either at mouth level, above or below.

As I moved farther away from the house and down the graveled road, a lone deer stood at the edge of the road. This deer was a marked distance away from the others.

When I approached to within about 100 feet, the deer bucked and trotted across the road and ducked into a clearing along the river. There it stopped and turned its head back to watch me pass.

As in many other places now, the river flowed over its banks, swollen and powerful with a strong current down deep. Unlike other places in the region, there was not an active threat to homes, lives or other property.

The lengthening amount of daylight triggers birds to move northward on migration, regardless of conditions on the ground. This may be another reason my friend the blackbird seems less than enthusiastic.

Maybe his farm field nesting territory has more snow or ice than he had anticipated. Maybe he feels like he arrived too soon?

As it often is in April, especially later in the month, the list of birds arriving on summering grounds after migration grows daily. Some additional spring arrivals I’ve seen, however seemingly misplaced, include a brewer’s blackbird, yellow-bellied sapsucker and an American tree sparrow.

Reaching the end of the gravel road, where the blacktop begins, I turn around and head back in the opposite direction.

As I again approach the place where the deer dashed away from me, he comes running back across the road in front of me. His hooves leave deep tracks in the road. This time, the deer dashed up a side road.

The other deer that had stood close to me, remained in their positions as I passed again. At the bridge, the water of the river moved smooth and silent below me, within jagged rock walls.

The tugging back and forth between winter and springtime has seemed to be stretching out longer than usual this year. The warm temperatures last week melted my brain into thinking that might have been the last of it.

I got my hopes up, breaking a cardinal rule of living in this part of the north country. When you do that, the sight of snowflakes in the air and the sensation of cold winds blowing across your face can bring you down hard.

I fought back by buying my new fishing license and sent some trout fishing tips to my kids. I also went back to listen to the grosbeaks some more. They were a godsend on this day.

So, there’s a red-winged blackbird still sitting on a wooden post at the edge of a farmer’s old, fallow field. The bird doesn’t speak or hardly move. He sits there just starring into the field in front of him.

He appears a bit odd and aloof. He looks sad and alone. He seems at least discontented and maybe even a little perturbed.

I ask him, “What’s the matter buddy, long winter?”

I imagine his response as “No. Short spring, summer and fall.”

With that, I can see he and I are birds of a feather, no matter the weather.

If there had been room, I’d have considered joining Mr. Blackbird atop his fence post.

C’est la vie.

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.