The Backyard Naturalist or...

The Return of the Deadly Mantis!

My new best friend is a praying mantis that I rescued from my back porch. I saw him sitting there right under the kitchen door step. I picked him up and put him on the nearby rose bush in the hope that he'd find something to eat or at least make a loooooooove connection. I came back an hour later to find him right in my path again. I thought that maybe I should invite him in and make him a gin and tonic or something. This time I transplanted him around the corner of the house amongst my bed of nasturtiums. I was sure he'd find love and happiness in the new happy hunting ground.

A week would pass before I spotted him again. I look for him religiously when I'm out in the back yard and now and then I get lucky. I found him on a berry bush trying to make his way down the wire fence to greener pastures and hopefully a bug or two to decapitate. I'd recently purchased an HD camcorder so when I spotted him I ran inside to grab it. Halfway into the house I realized I didn't need to hurry, I mean, he's not exactly Jesse Owens if you know what I mean. I could have taken an hour to return and he'd still be in that general vicinity. So why hurry? I came back to find him in the same exact position. I opened the camera and lined up my shot. Now bear in mind that I've always wanted to be a nature photographer, especially one of those lucky bastards that film for the Discovery Channel or National Geographic. So now I'm shooting and it immediately becomes clear to me what nature photographers have to deal with... boring animals. Not that the creature itself is boring, mind you, it's just that animal in question doesn't perform when the camera is rolling which makes for a rather dull video presentation. Of course as any nature photographer will tell you they will shoot about fifty minutes of film for every minute that they actually use in the finished product. The animal needs to move around, eat another helpless creature or at least lick itself. I realize that it's a little late in life for me to follow in the footsteps of David Attenborough but that really and truly was my intention. Or maybe not. I can't picture Lord Attenborough peering through the viewfinder and screaming at the top of his lungs "DO SOMETHING GODAMMIT!"