The older I get, the more I look forward to the red and gold of autumn. While the trees often sport these colors as the season rolls around and summer comes to an end, the red and gold that often accompanies this time in between that seasonal shift is a bit different. The areas around those still-green canopies are hallmarked by the fleeting ruby and golden blur of meadowhawk dragonflies that signal the transition from the warm weather season into fall.

As a youngster, it didn’t take me long to associate the appearance of these flitting crimson and yellow dragonflies at the lake cabin and in our front yard at home as a signal to the end of summer and the dreaded approach of school starting. Now known to me to be the meadowhawk variety of dragonflies — a very cool name in its own right — I enjoy seeing them in the expanses of sunshine where they warm themselves this time of year. This is because I know that hunting season is just around the corner and the warm summer afternoons will soon fade to the cool mornings of autumn.

The insects too will linger until the first frost or two takes them and wraps up their brief lifespan. Like the matching colors on our streetlights, they serve as a reminder to slow things down or even stop altogether to savor this in-between phase of the outdoor calendar, no matter how busy I might be. It’s warm enough where summer fish are still readily biting, but cooling down enough so those autumn fish such as trout and pike will also be back on the feed as fall comes in. On morning grouse walks with the dog, or those perfect late-season outdoor running days, it’s not uncommon to see them waiting on the leaves of milkweed plants or brome and bluestem grasses for the warm and dry conditions of late morning and early afternoon to help them enjoy one more flight before their window closes.

There’s a bigger life metaphor (or maybe a number of them) in the mix with each lift and rest that the meadowhawks make in the grass, their wings slowly ticking down to a stowed position before suddenly springing back into action and buzzing them away to the next stop. Perhaps that message is to enjoy the moment. It could be that like theirs, our lives and time spent hunting, fishing or doing those things we enjoy alone, or with friends, or with family outdoors, are also fleeting on a grander scale. It simply may be that everything changes; from season-to-season, week-to-week, and even hour-to-hour and there’s always a tell of what’s to come. Whatever the message is that the meadowhawks bring, and whatever I’m doing this time of year, the thoughts that accompany the sighting of these smaller dragonflies are almost as fast-moving as the seasonal shifts which cue my to-do lists, from getting ready for autumn pursuits with the shotgun and bow to emptying boat lifts, conducting clean up around the cabin, and arranging watercraft to be taken to the service department for winterization. With those activities, the red and gold of the meadowhawk is just one more sign of what’s to come borne by their furtive movements and flights of fancy through those warm late summer and early autumn spaces … in our outdoors.