Backyard Kin and Connection

How Wildlife Gardening Deepens Our Relationship with Nature

Story & Photos by Martha Siegel

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the pickerel frog that visited us daily during 2025’s

In drought-stricken August, this frog would leap up 18 inches into a ceramic planter, which by late summer was dense with flowers and foliage, and watered each day.

drought-stricken August. This frog would leap up 18 inches into a ceramic planter, which by late summer was dense with flowers and foliage, watered each day during the relative cool of morning. If the stream of water was too direct or if I got too close while tending blossoms, the frog would leap dramatically out of the pot, startling me every time. I was somehow pleased to be providing something that this frog needed, presumably a cool, moist refuge during a meteorological extreme unfriendly to denizens of dampness. That this striking amphibian repeatedly chose my flower pot for refuge seemed a minor miracle, as are so many of the simple wildlife encounters in one’s carefully tended piece of the world. 

I feel the same sense of wonder and gratitude when a bird chooses to nest nearby. A wild creature has chosen to spend a critical part of its life in my orbit. I feel honored about this thing that feels like trust. Thus, it seems we are in a relationship of sorts. Whether it’s a monarch butterfly selecting swamp milkweed that I planted on which to lay her eggs or a phoebe using, re-using, and repairing a nest for years under our elevated porch floor or a toad burrowing daily in my pepper seedling container in the dooryard during the late May afternoon heat, each one of these animals has decided that a space that we have provided is safe and advantageous enough to inhabit.

“When wildlife chooses our yard, we are reminded that we belong to the larger mosaic of life.”

 Daily dramas unfold in silk and sunlight.

I can only conclude that the satisfaction these encounters bring me is in proportion to my need to connect with life forms other than fellow humans. Perhaps, this is me craving on some level to belong to the larger world as an equal piece of the astonishing mosaic of life on Earth. 

The older I get, the more I want to observe that spider who grows throughout the summer by gruesomely ambushing and wrapping unsuspecting insects outside the window in front of my kitchen sink. I want to run outdoors to locate the nesting broad-winged hawk who is punctuating the afternoon with piercing high-pitched cries. At dusk, I need to check on the bat who swoops above the twilit field for insects to devour and the fireflies who have survived into adulthood to do their light dance. My joy in the nearness of these animals reminds me of our connection, and that we are in relationship with each other, on many levels both micro and macro.

Healthy habitat reaches from flowerpots to forest canopy.

If you are reading this, you no doubt have your own list of favorite awe-inducing encounters in your yard, and I would love to know about them. Like me, you might be in the business of creating conditions that promote these interactions.

I did not start this piece thinking about advertising for MLT, but I’m realizing the Habitat for All program is at the forefront of capitalizing on our desire and need to forge connections among ourselves, animals, plants, and the environment on which we all depend. This program has certainly had an influence on how I see myself in relation to nature. Make sure you check out what is being offered in the way of webinars, workshops, and presentations. 

Subscribe to the Small Things newsletter