Praying Mantis - Natural pest control

A while back I was looking for a way to keep bugs off my garden without drenching everything in poison, and ran across a preying mantis egg case on the internet. They sell them in the spring for about 10 bucks, and you can hatch your own little herd of pest control monsters.

Each case will hatch about 200 little baby mantis, and they all start heading out and eating bugs and mites and each other immediately. You would probably want this to happen outside. I put the egg case in a big glass jar in the garden, and came out one day to see hundreds of tiny critters climbing around inside.

As luck would have it, I had just received a zoom lens for my camera. So I decided to use this crazy event to learn how to worked and see what it could do. The mantis were less than 1/2 inch long, and focusing in on them took a while to get right at full size. Here is a row of them marching around the rim of their jar.

Once given a bridge to escape, they all marched right off into the garden.

Surveying the new land.

Marching around the pots.

Protecting the oregano.

Defending the maple.

Guarding the lemon tree.

After the herd dispersed into the garden they were pretty hard to spot. Every once in a while I would see one hanging out, and unlike most bugs they always seem notice and look directly at you.

Spying on you from under a leaf.

Peering at you from the maple.

Stalking you from the flowers.

Sneaking up on you in the dark...

These were all taken with a Sony A65 and a 18-200 zoom lens. It was an interesting way to learn what the lens could do. I wish I have known the benefits of the tripod and remote shutter at that point. I never did get a clear shot of one waving at me.

If you can get over the stalking part, I highly recommend those critters for pest control. That summer I had the least problem with bugs in the garden ever, and if I could remember to order them on time I would probably toss one out there every year. It just seems smarter than poisoning the food.