The other weekend, while working outside, I felt a tickle on the back of my neck. I craned my head around and managed to catch a glimpse of the tickler: a praying mantis.
Because of course. Out of all of the vegetation available on the farm, why wouldn’t you land on the human?
I think praying mantises (plural?) are really neat insects. Sightings are relatively rare, so I’m always happy to see one.
Eventually, it flew into the garden where the camouflage was much better. Just look at how it blends in with this lily. The brown and yellow and green tones are so similar.
Nature’s pretty cool.
What insects and animals are you seeing around your house? Who else likes praying mantises? What’s the best example of camouflage you’ve observed?
Home on 129 Acres 
It’s funny, I have seen more Praying Mantis this year than I ever had. They are so interesting, and it is so funny how they crane their heads around.
Flies are the most irritating around here now, I think they are coming inside to avoid the cold. And I am also starting to see Woolly Worms!
I think we’ve made it through fly season (thank goodness). We’re now in millipede season. They’re everywhere and they’re pretty gross. They’re also small enough that they can slip through the weatherstripping and into the house. Ew. Woolly Bears (as we call them up here) are much nicer!
Ewww. Ewww. Ewww… Thankfully I rarely see a millipede!
That’s pretty cool – I have never seen a praying mantis (except at the Bug Zoo.) They’re really neat.
We have spiders…many, many spiders! They are all coming in to get out of the cold, in to our garden apartment. Yesterday we had one that was almost as big as a ping pong ball (legs included.) I’m not afraid of them, and always put them outside instead of killing them. Without them we’d get even more eaten alive by mosquitoes in the summer, so I’m grateful!
PS – what on earth is a woolly worm/woolly bear?
I didn’t realize praying mantis weren’t more common across the country. A woolly bear is a fuzzy little caterpillar. It’s brown and orange striped, and the tale is that the width of its stripes predict whether it will be a harsh or mild winter: http://www.almanac.com/content/predicting-winter-weather-woolly-bear-caterpillars.
Good luck with your spiders!
Oh, those! We had those on our willow trees in Edmonton when I was a kid, but they were black and bright yellow. Very striking, and I loved them, but they dig their little hairs into your skin when they inch across and it itches like fire.
No wonder you remember those caterpillars!