I love our yard. I especially enjoy our Kangaroo Paws. They seem to attract lots of insects and hummingbirds. It is most fun when it is time to cut off the dying paws, because then that’s when I end up finding lots of hidden visitors. This time I came across two Katydids, which is the first time I have seen them in our yard and one Praying Mantis.

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I have to post this, because it’s just too cool. Zoo York is releasing a line of skateboards that NYC artists have done their renditions of cockroaches on. They look really great. Check them out at Zoo York.

Luckily on this day I had brought my camera to work, because a beautiful Praying Mantis decided to hang out by our back door. She was quite interested in what I was doing and was a bit feisty. Here are some photos from that day.

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It was a Saturday and my mom had decided to mow the lawn. As she was mowing she almost got a face full of web and orb weaver. The Orb weaver (as they like to do) had put up a web from the corner of our garage to the tree in the middle of our yard and was right in the middle of both of those hanging out in the open waiting to catch some tasty morsels. I ran out with my camera and the second the orb weaver caught wind of my intentions she high-tailed it off of the web and hid in the tree. Uh-oh I thought I need to be more sneaky. So I waited. I went back inside and did other things. A half-hour later I took a look and she was back in the middle of her web. I grabbed my camera and tripod and asked Ethan to help assist and we carefully approached, as slow as we could and managed to not disturb her. Since she now was being a superb model, we played around with different colored backdrops. She hung around for days after that and we would cautiously walk to our car, afraid we might snag her web on the way by. Here are some of the pictures we got.

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I first fell in love with insects when I met my first Praying Mantis when I was a young girl. They fascinated me and I was intrigued because they didn’t run away. Now I enjoy “dancing” with them. For years I didn’t pay much attention to the insects around. When we bought our house we spent a lot of time choosing California drought friendly plants and replanted our entire front and backyard. Soon after that I ran into a Praying Mantis. I was so excited I hadn’t seen a Mantis for years. I grabbed my camera and started taking pictures. Soon after that I went onto Ebay and bought a Macro lens. I started to discover all sorts of insects in our yard and started taking pictures. I have now run into many wonderful insects and hope to be able to find more to take pictures of. I hope with my blog I will be able to share with you the pictures I take and stories that go along with them. I also will post here if I happen across any interesting news or stories that don’t involve my photos. Please come visit often to see what insect is sharing my life with me.