Damselfly—thin body, eyes set apart, wings held together while perching

Impromptu Exploration

“Why would someone leave their trash here?” my 7-year-old asked when we arrived, pointing to a plastic container in the water. We fished it out but decided quickly that the litter had a higher purpose: It was a tool for parent and child explorers.

My son was the designated scooper, repeatedly gathering cupfuls of water. Those that included aquatic critters left him gleeful. The tadpoles eluded us (too swift!), but we enjoyed close-up views of water striders and other wee creatures in our hour spent observing. One so fascinated us that we took it home to ID it: a damselfly nymph, according to the books and websites we referenced.

After returning the nymph to the stream to complete the aquatic portion of its life cycle, we paused to admire the adult damselflies and dragonflies as they perched and flew by, and we talked about the differences between them. We also promised each other we’d be back to explore another day—our hideout in plain view. The location isn’t safeguarded, but our memories are.

What’s the Difference? Damselflies vs. Dragonflies

Dragonfly—stout body, eyes close together, wings open while perching

Fictional dragons are large compared to their fair maiden, or damsel, counterparts—and the same goes for these close cousins of the insect world.

• Damselflies usually have thin bodies, while dragonflies tend to be stouter.

• When perching, damselflies hold their wings together or partially spread, while dragonflies typically rest with their wings open.

• Among the other differences: Dragonfly eyes meet at or near the top of the head, while damselfly eyes are set apart.

We regularly see both types of odonates when we’re out and about. Do they visit your neighborhood too? I hope so. They’re lovely to behold.

Find out how to attract these aerial acrobats to your garden.

I LOVE YOU

My husband and I both helped to instill in our two children an appreciation for nature. We encourage outdoor play, garden for wildlife and spend regular time exploring nearby green spaces (including the backyard!) with our family. While the benefits for our kids are well documented, I’ve become increasingly aware of the benefits outdoor time brings to me as well.

Parents and other grown-ups are just as tethered to electronic devices as our youth counterparts, it seems. It’s how much of business—and even schoolwork—gets done these days. But being focused on computers, smartphones and the like can steal opportunities to bond with friends and family—to make lasting memories—when we fail to tune out email streams when the workday is done and to afford ourselves the gift of disconnecting. That’s why I consider walk invitations and enthusiastic wildlife observations (“I see a butterfly!”) such loving expressions. They say simply but pointedly: Share this with me. Enjoy the natural world you helped me to discover.

Take Time Out

I encourage everyone reading this post to take time during National Wildlife Week (and beyond!) to step out the door with a loved one to tune in to nature’s wonders, refuel and open yourselves to unexpected joys. On a recent hike, my 7-year-old son spotted a “tail” in the leaf litter. I stood beside him, hoping to see what he saw. A garter snake! Thrilled by his find, he quietly pointed it out to every passer-by and told me I “should write about it for National Wildlife.” I’m doing the latter now, for it’s a fitting reflection. “This is awesome,” he whispered, as we admired the reptile. It was. And I can still feel the love.

Learn more about how you can celebrate EXTRA-ordinary species in your community and across the country during this year’s National Wildlife Week, March 19-25 >>

When it snows in October,
And it seems autumn’s over,
We go out and play
And have a great day
Building in a backyard wonderland.

Gone away is the cell phone.
Joyful smiles set a new tone.
We laugh with our friends.
It’s fun to pretend,
Building in a backyard wonderland.

In the garden we construct a snowman—
Leaves for hair that come from yonder tree.
He will melt but not our happy feelings.
They’ll live on in our family’s memory.

Later on when we’re older,
Thinking back to days much colder,
Mom and kids will both say
“I’m glad that we played.”
Our backyard is a treasured wonderland.

The Sylvan Grove, Kansas, couple has spent more than 20 years serving as volunteer organizers and teachers of Outdoor Adventure Camp, an annual program Tommie designed with the support of the Kansas Wildlife Federation, a National Wildlife Federation affiliate. “We realized kids were not getting outside like they used to, and we decided that we needed a camp to get the kids outside,” says Tommie, a fisheries biologist.

“From sunrise to sundown and beyond, the Bergers and their hand-picked volunteer instructors teach kids about wildlife and wildlife habitat, and how to trade in the television remote control for a fishing rod, a shotgun, a canoe paddle, the reins of a horse,” says Eddie Nickens, Field & Stream’s editor-at-large. Since its creation, the camp program has provided a weeklong lesson in good stewardship and simple enjoyment of the outdoors to more than 500 youth.

Now in its sixth year, Field & Stream’s Heroes of Conservation program is dedicated to honoring individuals who spend their time working to create, improve or restore fish and wildlife or habitat.

The Bergers and the other 2011 finalists were recognized at the Heroes of Conservation Awards Gala in Washington, D.C, on October 11. The couple received a $5,000 grant for the Outdoor Adventure Camp program.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt points to sheet of conservation stamps created for NWF's first National Wildlife Restoration Week in 1938.

IN 1938, PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT helped National Wildlife Federation launch its first National Wildlife Restoration Week. Held annually ever since, National Wildlife Week (as it is now known) is the Federation’s longest-running education program. Though its topic of focus regularly changes, the event’s original purpose remains true: “For uniting the efforts of all friends of outdoor America to the end that future generations shall have their rightful heritage of wildlife.”

National Wildlife Week: March 14–20, 2011

This year’s theme is “Wildlife That Move Us,” a celebration of the animals in our communities and the ways they get around. Related resources for kids, teens, parents and educators are available online. Outdoor activities, games, lesson plans and community-service ideas are among the offerings.

Wildlife That Fly

Different types of animal locomotion will be featured each weekday, beginning with a look at wildlife that fly. Here are a few photos of fliers observed in backyard gardens:

Monarch butterfly in flight

Lesser long-nosed bat feeding on agave bloom

Rufous hummingbird at fountain

Bee and coneflower

Dragonfly

If you have an image of an animal on the move to share, add it to our Wildlife Watch album on Flickr and tag it WildlifeWeek.

Wood frog (Lithobates sylvaticus)

I DID A DOUBLE TAKE when I passed the pond outside my office window this morning: activity! Dozens of frogs were moving about the water in the Certified Wildlife Habitat^® at NWF’s headquarters in Reston, Virginia.

Handicapped by my nearsightedness, I stepped outside and used my ears to ID them: wood frogs. The males call to attract mates of their own kind, but their chorus was also music to my ears today. (Listen to the wood frogs’ raspy quacks.)

“Spring must be a-comin’!” a colleague said. Indeed.

What signs of spring have you observed?

George H. Harrison

GEORGE H. HARRISON knew he was on to something. While serving as managing editor of National Wildlife in 1972, he heard about two U.S. Forest Service researchers in Massachusetts who were studying ways to convert suburban yards into mini-habitats for birds and other wild creatures. “Their study showed that the same basic principles wildlife managers had been using for decades—providing food, water, cover and places to raise young—worked beautifully on a smaller scale in backyards,” says Harrison.

He convinced the two researchers, Richard DeGraaf and Jack Ward Thomas, to write an article describing the steps homeowners could take to create such habitats. That article, “Invite Wildlife to Your Backyard” in the April/May 1973 issue of National Wildlife, helped provide the basis for NWF’s Certified Wildlife Habitat^® program, which celebrates its 38th anniversary this year.

Kelly: John Strohm, then editor of National Wildlife, called the article “one of the most significant articles we’ve ever published.” Why do you think the article was important?

George: The whole concept that suburbanites and urbanites could have a backyard filled with birds and other wildlife awakened people’s need to be closer to nature. It was a timely article because in the 1970s the American public had realized that our planet was in trouble (the first Earth Day, etc.) and that nature was no longer a part of their world. “Invite Wildlife to Your Backyard” opened a whole new opportunity for people, especially families, to interact with wildlife at close range, just outside their windows. For most people, it was—and still is—the one and only way to see nature and relate to wildlife.

Kelly: How did the article change the way you garden?

George: Though I had been feeding birds in my backyard since I was a child (we were a nature family), the concepts of increasing the kinds and volume of birds and animals in my environment by providing food, cover and water caused me to design my own model backyard wildlife habitat. I am Certified Wildlife Habitat^® #604. I have since designed backyard habitats in private and institutional locations.

Redpoll at feeder

George: The easiest way to get started learning and appreciating wildlife is to establish your own backyard wildlife habitat. You can start small with a couple of bird feeders, a bird bath and some potted evergreens. If you group those three items outside a favorite window in your house, birds and other wildlife will come, I promise you.

Kelly: Why do you think the Certified Wildlife Habitat^® program remains relevant today?

George: With each passing year, young people are removed farther and farther from the natural world. In Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv documents how children are living lives that are more distant from nature than ever before in our history. Involving kids in the process of creating habitat is a way to reverse this trend.

George H. Harrison is an award-winning nature writer and photographer whose accomplishments include authoring 13 books, hosting six PBS television specials and helping to start Birds & Blooms magazine. While working at National Wildlife Federation, he served as both managing editor and field editor of National Wildlife.

Ruby-throated hummingbird

After Pat Neuhaus read in the December/January issue of National Wildlife that out-of-range-and-season sightings of hummingbirds are becoming increasingly common, he put out his sugar-water feeders. The next day, a hummingbird arrived in his South Carolina yard.

“I hope to go by his house this weekend to try to band this hummer,” says Doreen Cubie, a licensed bander and author of the feature that inspired Neuhaus to take action. Bob Sargent of the Hummer/Bird Study Group put the two in touch after the homeowner reported his sighting. Both Cubie and Sargent are part of a coalition studying the apparent shifts in the cold-weather ranges of several hummingbird species.

“Bob Sargent emailed me to say he has received nearly 700 replies so far from people who read the hummingbird article and have hummingbirds in their yards now,” reports Cubie. “Pretty amazing, really. Because of these contacts from National Wildlife readers, wintering hummingbirds have been banded in Pennsylvania, Michigan and in several places in the Southeast.”

Report winter hummingbirds: If you have a sugar-water feeder out and spot a hummingbird, the Hummer/Bird Study Group would like hear from you. Contact the group at rubythroat@aol.com.

Find out more: Read “The Hummingbirds of Winter” by Doreen Cubie, then check out her tips for attracting these avian pollinators to your garden.

Find out how to honor a wildlife gardener in your life with a gift certification.

If you know someone new to gardening, or who has already certified a habitat, you can boost that friend or family member’s efforts as well. Consider these gifts:

Plants and seeds: When parents and teachers launched the habitat project at my children’s school, it was a grassroots, small-budget affair. The first plants we added came from our own gardens. Cheers to seeds and transplants! Many flowers bloomed the first season.

Time: Sharing your love for gardening is an incredible gift. Whether it’s lending your neighbor a hand with a chore, helping with a restoration project or volunteering at a local garden, the contribution is meaningful.

Garden accessories: Man-made features can also enhance the wildlife value of a garden. A nesting box was added to the aforementioned schoolyard habitat, a gift from a teacher who is a birding enthusiast. Tree swallows took up residence the first year, eastern bluebirds the next—and students enjoyed up-close views of avian family life. It’s a gift that keeps on giving!

What’s your favorite garden gift?

Learn more about attracting wildlife to your garden and how to create a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat^® >>

Broad-headed skink on tree snag

At the beginning of November, my friend Debi of Go Explore Nature posted this update on her Facebook page:

“I’m thankful for nature’s many splendors all year long, but the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday encourages a little more thoughtfulness. This month, I’ll be sharing some of the many reasons I am thankful for the time I spend with my kids exploring nature. I hope you’ll join in!”

I’ve enjoyed reading her daily reflections and appreciate the reminder to count the blessings in my own world. Here are a few:

I’m thankful my yard and the woodland it borders support local wildlife such as this broad-headed skink (left) and other once new-to-me species. It’s nice getting acquainted with these animal visitors, for such gives me the opportunity to nurture my sense of wonder and that of my kids. Make your garden a home.

I’m thankful for the American goldfinches that captivate my neighbor. He said he wouldn’t have stopped to admire them had he not spent time bird-watching with my family. Take time to share nature’s wonders and your fondness for them. IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE.

I’m thankful for my son, who calls regular “bug club meetings”—backyard explorations focused on the wee critters of our habitat. We tune in to insects, as well as one another. Disconnect from electronic media, step outside and connect with your loved ones. (I find myself laughing more when I’m outdoors. How about you?)

I’m thankful for the teacher who said yes when this mom full of daydreams asked if she was up for gardening. A community-supported schoolyard habitat project grew out of that conversation. We created an outdoor classroom! If you can dream it, you can do it. Believe. BEGIN!

As Debi noted, nature hosts many splendors. Which ones bring YOU joy?