Insect Control? Look To Natural Predator

Have a need for insect control? Why not try a natural predator, himself a blood-thirsty insect. In different sections of the country he is known as prophet, mule-killer, soothsayer and devil's rear horse.

Measuring from two to five inches in length, this grayish-green fellow has two sets of slim grasshopper-like back legs and prizefighter-looking front legs. These strong, muscular-filled arms have wicked hooks underneath to hold its victim while it actually eats it alive.

The praying mantis is also a cannibal. He has no love for his own kind. If he's hungry, he'll eat his brother.

His color and shape resemble the plants on which he spend the day to escape notice.

Like a pair of binoculars, his black eyes protrude from a heart-shaped face. His body is slender, the wings short and broad.

The praying mantis is a pretender. As soon as dark begins to fall, he crawls from his hideout onto foliage or bark, a perfect camouflage for his twig-colored and twig-looking body. Kneeling in a pious position, he lifts his huge front paws as if in prayer, but really he's getting in position to attack unsuspecting prey. He remains in this pious position until an unfortunate insect ventures near. Then he snatches him, pinning down the victim with his vicious claws and eats it alive.

A birder once snapped a mantis at dusk devouring a ruby-throated hummingbird at a nectar feeder.

The female, larger than the male, has even stronger cannibalistic traits. She takes advantage of this and after mating will turn on her husband, kill him, or make a meal out of him while he is still alive. Her weakling mate, resigned to his fate, lifts not a hooked claw to save his life.

In the fall the mantis cycle begins anew when the female lays an oval mass of eggs on the stem of a plant and covers it with mucus that hardens in an eye-catching, creamy-tan case, assuring the next summer's supply of praying mantises.

This beguiling insect with ravenous appetite is considered beneficial, especially to gardeners. It is a glutton and feeds on nothing but insects (with the exception of a small bird or two) and can be called nature's garden vacuum cleaner.

A single mantis eggcase, hardly an inch in diameter, holds scores of hungry nymphs. Pushing out of the eggcase, they, like butterflies and moths, need only to hang upside down for a few minutes until their bodies and legs harden in the cool air.

Within minutes after hatching, these young cannibals are snatching and devouring destructive insects in your garden. Mantises are also fond of some beneficial insects such as honeybees and ladybugs, but they do away with harmful insects in greater numbers.

The easiest way to stock a garden with mantises is to buy eggcases (available at some nurseries) and tie them to bushes or low trees during late fall, winter or early spring. The nymphs stay secure in the snug eggcases throughout the winter months.

Then when the spring sun is warming in the sky and the air is fine and sweet with the fragrances of roses and the first insects are hatching and humming, the little nymphs crawl out of their cozy bedroom, hang themselves up to dry and charge!

How To Pick The Right Bird House

Rare Kinglet Visit Always Pleasant

The budding trees of May in the far north call the ruby-crowned kinglets to come home. The sun is climbing higher in the sky each day and it has that spring warmth that fattens buds and brings a glow to spring flowers.

After wintering in the sunny South, they hear the call and heed it. We have not seen one of these vivacious little jewels now for three weeks. We won't see them around again until they replace our hummingbirds in September when they come bouncing in to fill the void.

We know they are busy and happy for now they are in their breeding grounds. The male must win a mate, help build the dainty little nests, usually lined with rabbit fur and feathers, and all the while keep up his exuberant, almost tumultuous chorus in song. Into this cozy nest of moss, lichens and grasses, the female lays nine teeny, pale buffy eggs with tiny dots of henna-brown. With nine hungry mouths to feed, who has time for singing.

Discarding pansies and planting impatiens one day in mid-May several years ago, I was startled with a loud burst of tumultuous birdsong I had never heard before. I dropped my trowel and sprang to my feet, hoping I could find the author of such a gay melody.

To my surprise there he was, a small midget in feathers. How could such a loud melody come from such a small buffy throat? There, on a limb of a water oak, sat a tiny olive-gray bird, his crown patch glowing . . . a ruby-crowned kinglet!

"Why", I asked him, "are you still here?"

I feel the most fortunate of birders to have heard this boisterous song for I might never be in his far northern breeding range when he is in full, rich song.

Kinglets are wee, plump little birds clad in olive and buffy gray plumage. The bright red crown patch of the male is a positive field mark but it is often covered by the head feathers. Other good field marks are the white eye ring, making the small black eyes appear pop eyed, and the two white wing bars.

The ruby-crowned kinglet is a common winter visitor in the Central Savannah River Area. They move about through the naked trees and luxuriant growth of evergreen trees and shrubs in search for food. Not being noisy or flocking birds, though they are abundant in our area, one would scarcely notice.

During the winter they stay busy just hunting food. Then by early May a wee voice tells them the trees are budding in the northern states and they zoom away on a silvery, moonlit night.

Why was this perky little fellow still at my place in mid-May when he should be helping a mate trim their cozy home with green moss?

We'll never know but from his exuberant bursts of song in the water oak on that May day, wild wisdom sent him a message and courting, mating and nesting were on his mind. Why else would he explode with such melody?

Birds Experience Housing Crisis Too

Unusual nesting sites of birds are always interesting, especially when the nesters use locations that aren't in the books.

Some years ago an article appeared in the Atlanta Constitution of an unusual mockingbird's nest. Adelaide and Laurance Sawyer of Ringgold, GA, put up a log bird house for bluebirds with a metal flange around the opening to exclude larger birds. An arbor supported the 10-foot pole. The arbor, the pole and the bluebird house were supported by trellises for growing tomatoes and climbing beans, come spring.

In the spring, before the bluebirds could nest, a yellow-shafted flicker comes bouncing in and tries to enlarge the cavity. Day after day he works at it. His constant drilling gains the sympathy of the Sawyers and they remove the flange thinking they are helping the flicker. That does it. He doesn't want anyone messing around with the construction of his house and never returns.

To their surprise a pair of mockingbirds become interested in the bluebird house. One day they see both birds go into the box. One goes in and stays. When the Sawyers check, they find one egg . . . a mocker's egg in a mocker's nest.

If another article was in the paper giving the outcome of the nesting, I missed it. I never knew if they completed incubation and the youngsters fledged.

On our bluebird trail we had a mockingbird build in a hanging basket of begonias on the porch of a family who had one of our bluebird boxes on their premises. Eggs were laid in the nest but they disappeared. There were no clues as to what happened to the eggs. The birds didn't attempt another nesting in the basket.

To our surprise and excitement, a robin started a nest in somewhat of a crotch on a slopping branch of a sweet gum tree outside our living room window. It was not saddled on the branch as usual, but about half of it hung somewhat like an oriole's nest from the unstable fork.

One day it looked as if it were complete. That afternoon a strong thunder shower came through the area and the nest was thrown to the ground. I examined the fallen nest. The same materials were used as in other robin's nests. The nest was not as large as usual, but the inside depth seemed to be about the same.

The next day the female starts another nest using some of the material from the nest nature had foreclosed on. She placed the nest on the same spot on the branch. In a few days it appeared to be near completion. It was not meant to be. A strong wind comes out of the west and brings destruction to the second nest.

Two days later the robin was busy rebuilding . . . same style, same spot, same materials.

Again, in a few days, the nest appears ready for use. A determined mother, wouldn't you say? A few mornings later we find this nest on the ground. At the time, no eggs were in the nest.

There had been no wind nor rain. We never knew what brought the third nest down. She used mud on it, as all robins do, and that makes a robin's nest heavy and not very suitable for swinging in the wind.

Take Part In Bird Banding At Chatfield