On Thursday before Hurricane Isabel had even touched down on the shores of North Carolina we started experiencing strong winds with even stronger gusts way up here in SE PA. According to a link posted by Shelley the other day I read that, "During a storm, birds and other animals know instinctively to take shelter and 'hunker down.' They will find any possible places out of the wind, hail, rain."
Well guess who 'hunkered down' on the leeward side of my house, protected from the strongest of the winds and most of the intermittent rain that announced Isabel's approach? If you guessed a praying mantis, you'd be correct. It was probably the late season fellow I had spotted and photographed two days earlier. And just where did he seek shelter? Up near the top of a sunroom screen where the overhang served as his own personal umbrella. He wasn't getting food up in that location but I watched him closely for hours as he monitored the bee action down below on the Abelia Grandiflora blossoms (which is coincidentally the shrub that served as the host for the egg mass which opened up to yield my very first little mantis babies two years ago). He remained in that location for at least four hours before heading down into the Abelia Grandiflora around dusk, and after we had enjoyed his company while eating supper in the sunroom. I haven't seen him since Thursday so I hope he was able to escape the wrath of Isabel when she started getting real nasty.
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