Sometimes you get a feeling about what you’re going to see, and what you’re not going to see, even before you enter the woods. Call it a vibe.

It’s unscientific, but undeniable. Today, the vibe said no birds.

Still, I want to get into this wilderness. An old Midwestern oak forest. It’s the country that fur-hunting Voyageurs explored in the 1600s. Deep, quiet, wild.

The Voyageurs were two-fisted Frenchmen who came through in canoes. Between rivers, each guy would carry a hundred pounds of pelts through the buggy woods.

The woods look the same today. In winter, you can bushwhack without bugs. I do this, and notice tracks in the snow. Deer mostly. But some are freshly made by a coyote. They’re sharp-edged. He’s probably watching me. I don’t see him.

I don’t see birds, either.

I’ve come to a spot near the brown, partly frozen river. A familiar place to sit on a fallen tree and think about things. Or, to sit and think of nothing, which is better. Some people call it meditation, when you think of nothing. That word doesn’t come naturally for me.

I won’t see geese and ducks on the river. Not today. I won’t see a Pileated Woodpecker. Or Red-bellied and Hairy Woodpeckers. No Downy Woodpeckers.

This could be blamed on the time of year, or maybe the time of day. But not really. Hell, on other occasions at this time of year and this time of day, I’ve seen plenty of birds.

A Great Blue Heron freezing his feet on ice. A Belted Kingfisher flying over the thawing river, letting out a croak that was more dinosaur than bird.

I’ve seen a rare Northern Shrike when the vibe was right. Tufted Titmice, Red-breasted Nuthatches, a Horned Lark, an Eastern Bluebird that didn’t migrate. Forest Robins that also didn’t migrate.

On days when I saw these birds I expected to see birds. I could feel it.

Today, nothing. And I knew it would be that way. That’s okay. I wanted to sit, watch the river, and think of just that: nothing.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011 at 4:41 pm and is filed under "Daily Sightings" A Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.