I just notice about mid-August up here, a few weeks before they leave, it gets very busy. They are bulking up. By Sept 6-10 or so they will be gone.
Mine seem to be gone. Last saw one a few days ago. The Keweenaw, Houghton/Hancock, MI
A different visitor to the feeders.
Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for. - Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and likely Hoosier basketball fan.
POTFB
@hooky Oh no, the dreaded Chinese mantis! I'm in a couple FB HB groups and oh my, the hysteria over those guys! I don't doubt that some do eat hummers, or would like to, but I can't imagine it's a very big # or %. Guarantee both dirty feeders and cats kill about 1,000x more.
My activity has dropped way off, I'd say by about 75% but I still see them regularly. My last one is usually around the first week of October.
kkott on a thumbs down roll. 🤣
Wow, I never would've thought a large mantis could kill even a small bird, figured they were bird food. First I've heard of that, had to google it. (They win!)
I would think they harm themselves at least as much as they succeed though. No idea.
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@hooky Oh no, the dreaded Chinese mantis! I'm in a couple FB HB groups and oh my, the hysteria over those guys! I don't doubt that some do eat hummers, or would like to, but I can't imagine it's a very big # or %. Guarantee both dirty feeders and cats kill about 1,000x more.
My activity has dropped way off, I'd say by about 75% but I still see them regularly. My last one is usually around the first week of October.
Yeah, I'd like to catch one in the act of tangling with a hummingbird. That would be epic. Wifey was all freaked out. I just reminded her it was like the hawks that hang out around the seed feeders. When you're feeding birds, you're feeding everything around the birds.
Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for. - Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and likely Hoosier basketball fan.
POTFB
Hummingbird vs Praying Mantis ...
@indianafirst Thanks for posting video. Quit screaming no and run out there and flick that F'er in the head and then stomp on it. I believe in letting nature take it's course, but they (the big Chinese mantis) are invasive just like the pythons in the Everglades and are actually pushing the native, small mantis towards extinction. Like I said, I don't doubt it happens, but I still believe it's extremely rare. On the HB groups the first thing I ask those that rail about it, is "have you actually personally seen this happen" and the answer has always been "no", although they all know someone who has! So, I'm not saying leave them, just shoo them off the feeder and relocate them, no different than if I had a cat hanging around my feeder, which has happened to me more than once.
kkott on a thumbs down roll.
Wow, I never would've thought a large mantis could kill even a small bird, figured they were bird food. First I've heard of that, had to google it. (They win!)
I would think they harm themselves at least as much as they succeed though. No idea.
The Chinese mantis, are much bigger (4-5" and stocky) than the native Carolina mantis, which is the traditional ones we used to see and are only about 3". They are voracious and will eat the native mantis' too. Seems like I've heard they can even fly; sort of like a palmetto bug!
That bug eating bird video is amazing. I never woulda thunk it. I thought before this thread if was a myth except maybe super rare one gets lucky on an injured bird.