Shining Light on the Prairie – Winging Toward Autumn

I've wanted for years to get a great picture of a praying mantis. All its other peculiarities aside, the thing about a mantis is that it looks you right in the eye and no bones about it.

The gaze of other insects is often opaque. Not so, the mantis. It sees you.

On a humid summer evening with a squall line bearing down and knowing we'd soon have to duck inside, I finally got my chance. This young one appeared as if from nowhere.

I raced inside, grabbed the Nikon and happily, didn't blow it…

It's been an up and down year on our prairie garden. A chill spring led to prolonged drought, followed by violent storms, then persistent heat, high humidity and periodically, more fierce storms.

Though I'd my doubts throughout June and most of July, by August the resilience of prairie life won out.

Now with every passing day, the light softens and recedes.

With that, the food supply is steadily constricted. It's getting crowded out there.

While there's still some pollen left on the Echinacea…

…that's increasingly the province of birds, whose sloppy eating habits spread the seed that'll inevitably turn into next spring's bounty.

It's been a fine year for monarchs. At any given time I can stand out in the yard and as many as five of them flit around me in the breeze. They jealously guard the butterfly bushes, which will provide for latecomer's the last food available after autumn's first frost.

My friends the Great Black Wasps returned, made babies and then taught their kids where the good stuff is. Each day, those buster the Greek Oregano from first light to last.

This year featured fewer Skippers than I'm accustomed to, but there were some.

Everyone works harder now, for less.

With evening, cicadas sing in raucous chorus. Afterwards, the nightshift takes over and critters I'll likely never see pronounce their existence just the same.

Every living thing on the prairie knows exactly what time it is. And that time is getting late.

Maybe this year will be when we find a monarch caterpillar on our milkweed. After all, that's why we grow it. As is, these hardy little buggers prevail.

In any event, we'll always have the mantis. We didn't, until one dropped by before the storm and said Here's looking at you, kid.

At this point, I'm just happy I was here to see it. And am utterly convinced the mantis saw me, for sure.