Praying Mantis

Nice close-up Ron.

Trop présentent chez nous les menthes religieuse.
Superbement rendue..!
HFF. et bon weekend.

I never had seen one. Beautiful!

As he walks by the arm of Meghan is amazing!!
Lovely, Ron!
So thanks also the interesting and enchanting note!

wow Ron

A stunning close-up, Ron !

Ein wunderschönes Exemplar der Gottesanbeterin, Ron.
Freundliche Güße, ein schönes Wochenende und bleib gesund
Erich

elle à l'air de se plaire, superbe photo j'aime énormément cette prise, Ron BRAVO

That is the largest one that I have ever seen. Thanks for the information.

WOAH! COOL!!! EEEE!!!! What's that? EEE??? From MEEE?!!! LOLOL...yeah, I do love these guys but I wouldn't want it crawling up my arm, thank you very much! I'd hold it on my hand though, but the No Zone starts at my wrist! Oh, and it could be on my foot up to my knee...anything higher is also the No Zone! HA! I never really thought about that until now! And that's why I erupted with "EEEEE!!!!" when I saw that picture! NO ZONE!!! NO ZONE!!! SOUND THE GENERAL ALARM!!! *rolls around laughing*

That being said, what a lovely mantid! Very nicely photographed too. Your granddaughter is very bold! I think we would have a lot of fun together with her love of animals and nature! :)

TY for the info too, I didn't know they aren't native to the US! My but aren't they successful, one can find them everywhere it seems. I'm glad they aren't destroying the places they've naturalized, too many species have laid waste to species/plants that have no way to protect themselves.

I'll be back at some point to give you a reply to the ginormous note you left for me what a tome of goodness!! :D

Superb capture and PIP! Stay well!

Admired in:
www.ipernity.com/group/tolerance

Great close-up images and fascinating information, Ron. I was surprised by the figure of 2000 species world-wide, but when I checked it seems we have about 160 species here. Have a great weekend.

I'm back!

Hey, I'm glad you liked my pictures today--the odds of finding everything going on with that leaf were pretty darn remarkable! I'm going to keep an eye on it...maybe it will stay there long enough that I can catch it covered with frost. I'm not hoping too hard, but it's fun to think about!

Yes, we have both true manzanitas and madrones on our property and they are so totally different you could never mix them up. (of course you know this probably better than me! :D) Seems obvious that the person who said or wrote that the two are the same is mistaken, as they are different genuses.The flowers, though the same shape, are different colors--pink for manzanita, white for madrone. And the leaves are totally different too--much smaller on manzanitas and they are softer and a dif color shade than the very large, hard madrone leaves. Both have peeling bark and lovely "glowing" skin on the branches and trunks but of course you and I can tell these two plants apart instantly. :) I was looking at the berries of each and they are similar enough that I would likely mix them up without leaf reference I think. Interesting, isn't it? You and I are crazy about them too which isn't a surprise, they are just marvelous! You know...one Christmas many years ago, we had one of Steve's friends stay at our house when we went on our honeymoon to Australia and when we got back, I found out that the guy had actually cut down one of our beautiful manzanitas because his girlfriend wanted to do some craft crap with a few of the branches. When I found the small tree in pieces, I was purple with rage--I'm STILL spitting angry that he would kill one of my precious manzanitas!!! Wow...ok, can't say another word about that, but I love them very much!

I looked up Spotted Knapweed--I've never seen this before but they are very pretty! Not that I should pay them any mind, the darn invasive weeds! They have a very similar shape as our horribly invasive species in this area, Yellow Star Thistle...it's just monstrous. And it too, is still flowering here. I hate it with a passion and pull out plants as much as I can to try to stop its spread...it's awful! I don't like to admit that the flowers are pretty because it's such a terrible plant.

MMMMMMmmmmm, all of your tater recipes sound lovely! Of course I love potatoes like a fiend, but they are one the worst source of carbs out there! I'm happy to let you guys eat all of the yummy tater dishes that I don't eat these days! The 'thin-cut pork chops cooked in green tomato chutney' sounds delicious!!

Dutch Bingo...lol, that's funny, and interesting that they are also family through your sister! :) It's cool that your family is so well-connected. I always think that's nice to see--our family never gets together and even when my dad was alive, trying to get our family together was a terrible chore. You guys really do pull out all the stops to make it happen. My family...well it's just not really worth the trouble to try to do. We keep tabs on one another and that's about it.

Re: your post from my butterfly picture...I was happy that you liked the pictures so much, it's always so fantastic to capture one and to get it at a proper angle too, YAY! Stink bugs...well we don't have them in our house--we get pine bugs (Box Elder) instead--but I can understand you not liking them for the same reason!

Wasp galls: you ought to try taking some pictures...they are neat subjects, esp with water droplets or frost or snow on them, but as you noticed in my pictures, they can just be sitting there and they're cool too! I spotted a broken, small shell of one next to the road a week ago and am keeping an eye on it...if it should rain or if we get frost, that little guy is going to make a marvelous subject! Cross your fingers! Oh, and I spotted a large Oak gall up in a tree today which has potential as well. Light or shadow hitting them at the right angle can make them really awesome to see!

It's 11:30 and *holds hand dramatically up to my forehead* I cannot go on! :D Time for bed. I'll see about finishing my reply tomorrow, what a lovely bunch of writing you've left for me! *yawn* Oh, one last thing! I think I might have mentioned that I went into town to take pictures while Steve was doing errands and I've been processing and going through the images...lots of really awesome shots, I'm so happy! :D Even if we don't go out for a specific day of fall photography, I've already gotten such a lovely variety of beautiful images, YAY!! :) Night night! :)