“I look up to you ’cause nothin’ else makes any sense now. I look up to you ’cause ev’rything else brings me down. I look up to you and all of your stars up there twinkling. I look up to you and all of the wise things you know,” – Steve Forbert

It’s a warm evening – late.

I’m listening to June bugs tapping against the living room windows, attracted to the soft blue glow of the television light.

The sound is off.

I have the windows and screen doors open.

I am listening closely to hear any sounds that might draw me out to the backyard.

A few minutes ago, I heard a loon singing from the lake across the way. That’s a very welcome and familiar sound this time of year.

I think the lonely tremolo song of a loon is one of the things that communicates the natural truth of tens of thousands of years to me. It’s a direct link to that ancient past that we can still experience today.

It’s mysterious and melancholy – miraculous.

Like the old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody song of the white-throated sparrow, the song of the common loon is an iconic symbol of the Great North Woods.

American toads are the prevailing sound tonight. I’ve been hearing their seemingly constant trill day or night over the past couple of weeks. Gray tree frogs have also started singing recently.

I see lights in the trees out front.

I hear the infrequent sound of cars approaching the house on the county road. Some race past with engines revved at dangerous speeds, while others glide more softly by with comparatively hardly any sound at all.

My mind is tired. Closing my eyes and doing nothing but sitting here listening helps me feel like I’m starting to drift off to sleep.

Instead, I decided to go out to the yard to look at the stars and feel the night air.

Stepping out into the blackness, the sky above was well lit by the constellations.

I start to whistle like a northern saw-whet owl.

The sound and cadence I’m making resembles that of a dump truck back up beeper.

The saw-whets, likely because of their small size and facial expressions, seem to be friendly little birds, though that’s a human impression I’m placing on them that they might not appreciate.

I hear the flapping sound of wings just a couple of inches away from my left ear. Even though it is deep darkness out here, I can immediately sense what it is.

By the rhythm of the wingbeats, this was certainly a bat of some type.

It was probably picking some sort of insect out of the air that was around me, most likely a mosquito. Whatever it was, this was a very cool happening.

I click a small flashlight on to see if there is anything else to see.

The first thing I spot is a June bug lying on its back. I flip it over and it makes a buzzing, rattling sound as it flies up from the cement.

Toads often travel from their hiding places in our lawn and gardens to reach the back patio to hunt for bugs. They like to sit along the bottom of the brick wall and wait.

In the flashlight beam, I see what I think is a small toad just a few feet away.

The closer I get, the more I realize that I am instead looking at a dried and crumpled leaf blown onto the concrete – a remnant from last fall’s big drop.

I smile a couple of minutes later when another dead leaf I see in the distance turns out to be a toad about the size of a small matchbox.

I shut the flashlight off after scanning the trees for the reflections of owl or deer eyes.

I find the picnic table and sit down in the darkness.

I am pleased to feel how warm the night air is. This is one of the things I reminded myself of last winter when I was out in those wild storms, throwing snow.

The air is soft and pleasant all around me. I look up at the stars again – another natural link to ancient times, the Greeks and their constellation names, the American Indians and their stories, and timelessly far beyond.

The chorus of a Steve Forbert song pops into my head:

Diamond Sky, tell me the truth

Will there be any real satisfaction?

Diamond Sky, oh, well, tell me the truth

Are my wheels spinning closer to traction

Great questions.

The nature calendar in my head tells me the June nights ahead will soon include the dainty and delightful dancing light show of the fireflies. I can hardly wait.

I linger in the darkness for a few more minutes before heading back inside the house.

Far off in the distance, I hear a barred owl hooting.

No saw-whets tonight.

I try to slip inside the back door before any mosquitoes get in.

I decided to shut the television off and head upstairs to bed.

The next morning, I woke up to sunny skies.

It was Saturday and I slept in more than I wanted to.

I immediately walked out the back door to find a scene much different than the night before. The temperature is still quite pleasant.

There was a lot more activity taking place.

The bird feeders were hopping, with ruby-throated hummingbirds, northern orioles, rose-breasted grosbeaks, a red-bellied woodpecker, common grackles, American goldfinches and red-winged blackbirds.

High above me I hear more birds chattering.

I see a chimney swift and a half-dozen tree swallows, circling and twittering away. Chimney swifts are one of my favorite bird species.

A few years back, I put up a purple martin house in the backyard, hoping to attract some of those birds from the swallow family. Nothing so far.

Colonies of purple martins are few in the Upper Peninsula these days. The best-established one I am aware of is at Ludington Park in Escanaba. Those beautiful birds live in numerous apartment-style birdhouses erected at the park by a local wildlife group.

Each year, I make at least one pilgrimage down to the park to see the martins and soak up some of the positive life force I find being in their presence.

When I was growing up, our next-door neighbor had purple martins nesting in her birdhouse. I loved to sit and watch them.

A couple of days back, I heard tree swallows singing in the backyard. I looked out the dining room window in time to see a male and a female flying around our martin house, investigating it as a possible nesting site.

Unfortunately, they stayed only a couple of minutes flying and landing before taking off. I haven’t seen or heard them since.

Too bad. I would have loved to have them as house guests. I wonder what she found unsuitable.

A deer was standing out in the front yard, in the shade, nibbling greenery from the edge of our rock garden. I asked her what she was doing.

She stood still for a moment or two staring at me.

She then stomped her front right hoof toward the ground. I imitated the motion with my right arm and smiled. With that, she dashed off up into the backyard. There, she began dawdling, nibbling again.

A great-crested flycatcher kept blowing his “police whistle” call from the top of various maple and birch trees around the forest border of the backyard.

I sat down at the picnic table again to soak in the scene again.

The rising sun was warm on the side of my face. It felt so good.

Nearby, our lilac and cranberry blossoms were opened to the blue skies, sending their sweet and soft fragrances into the gentle, warm winds. I could smell the lilacs from my seat.

I go into the house and get ready to start my day.

It’s one of those moments where I’m feeling that I have the whole weekend to do whatever I want. No real deadlines or commitments.

Soon enough, it will be Sunday night with the work week in front of me and I’ll be wondering where the weekend went so quickly.

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