Mantis and a dragonfly in flight.

The strong winds blew a Praying Mantis out of our granadilla fence.

It landed on the paving in the front garden close to me. So, I picked it up and handed to my wife to put it in the "Jacob's Ladder" bush, as it is sturdy, and the mantis will be safe in there. He didn't sit around for long, at first, he casually lounged around in the late afternoon sun and then he started to investigate his new home. At least, I thought he would be happy and stay in his new home, but the next morning when I went to look for him, he was gone. So be it.

See how casual this guy was.

Then he was off to investigate this new house. You can see how excellently his colors blended in with the Jacob ladder bush. I'm not going to ask you if you can see him, but look in the center of the picture above.

Now for something else.

I posted our visit to the Copper Kettle Restaurant at Raithby on Monday, and while we were there one of the laborers was washing the paved walkways down with a water hose. Now you might know, at what speed the Emperor dragonflies fly, and if you don't I can tell you that they are extremely fast and difficult to get in flight. But, I caught a guy flying around, and he often dipped to take a quick sip of the water, so fast that I could not get him in the act of sipping the water.

I know it looks like two dragonflies, but the dragonfly is at the top and his shadow is below.

This one below is when he took a quick sip and flew up again.

Finally, just to show that I could get him in flight.

Imagine you are typing a post and all of a sudden the power goes off. There is no power cut scheduled, but the winds have damaged some of the electrical connections and they can trip at any time. This is the second trip that we had and it caught me half way through this post. As we were not expecting a power cut, I had not connected the PC's to our inverter battery. So, both my wife and I jumped up to connect the PC's to the inverter. We had hardly connected the PC's to the inverter when the main power returned. What a life!

In any case, I digress, as I wanted to show you the beauty and some of the ways of these insects. Many are scared of the mantis, but they don't bite and they only put up their front legs to try and scare one. The dragonflies also don't bite, at least from my experience as I have taken hundreds of photos of dragonflies, and I've never been bitten by one. One of the reasons I like the dragonflies, is that they catch the mosquitoes. And the reason why I like a mantis, is that they also catch the pests in the garden.

I hope you have enjoyed the picture story.

Photos by Zac Smith-All Rights Reserved.

Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.

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