It's Official! The Kozlowsky Family Backyard Certified As A National Wildlife Federation Backyard Wildlife Habitat!

As a family, we were really fortunate to move into a house with a great backyard. It had a lot of great plantings and landscaping and we've been improving upon it during the last three years and have been able to increase the number of animal species that live here. In addition to the robins, cardinals, black-capped chickadees, finches, hummingbirds, sparrows, goldfinches, bluejays, bats, snakes, insects, dragonflys, frogs, slugs, newts, moles and squirrels that we have seen, adding the pond has introduced fish and snails and attracted more birds and frogs. Plus, we've had multiple generations of birds born in our yard over the past few years and this year we saw the first baby hummingbird born in the yard appear. (As I have been typing this a sparrow flew into our kitchen and flew out and a few weeks ago a hummingbird flew into the kitchen as well and after he got tired from not being able to find its way out I was able to pick it up and carry it to an open window!)

We're proud of what we've done and even more proud of Sophia as she has developed a genuine interest in the plants and animals. We saw a show about the National Wildlife Federation and backyard habitats on Animal Planet and decided to see if we could get our yard certified to become one. We found out yesterday that our backyard meets the criteria and our backyard has been certified as a National Wildlife Federation Backyard Habitat.

While it might not mean a lot to most folks, it means a lot to us. It's pretty amazing to sit out back and, within a minute or so, have a few different types of species appear in the yard and we really enjoy every aspect of planning, planting and fostering the habitat. As time goes by we'll definately post more pictures. (expecially when we build the second pond slated for next Spring!)

- John