Death in the willow.

The other day I was enjoying watching the ruby-throated hummingbirds fly around the backyard. Currently I have six hummingbird feeders up and going for the fall migration. There must have been 3 or 4 hummers fighting for the feeder closest to the desert willow. I was listening to the hummers making their little chatter. Suddenly I heard a hummer scream, if that is possible, I

looked over and saw that one hummer was upside down and twisting from a branch in the desert willow. I thought he had gotten his leg caught on something. I ran to grab a ladder, but on closer inspection, the hummer was not moving any more. Then I saw it, the branch was not a branch but a predator, a large brown praying mantis, it had killed one of the hummingbirds. What to do? Well, I photographed the scene of the villain and his prey. Then the mantis dropped the dead hummer to the ground. No, I didn’t kill the mantis, but I did knock him out of the tree. Nature is hard sometimes, well OK, it is hard all the time. Something dies and something lives. It was just hard that this little immature hummer’s life ended so quickly.