Mystery presents and mantids

11th August
Someone has been leaving plastic bags of garden produce hung on our gate. It just started a couple of days ago, lovely knobbly tomatoes and beetroots.

We are currently filming praying mantises, they are solitary, territorial creatures so they are housed in divided up aquariums, I catch crickets, moths and flies to feed them. For filming the mantids are put out on some grass and we hope they will do something interesting; stalk prey, mate, or threaten another mantid (a mantid's threatening thing is to spread her wings and make a sound like a sneezing cat). They may or may not perform but they do tend to fly off when they’ve had enough.

Our biggest mantid, one who we hope will become our 'star’ has a special set made up of long stalky grass stuck in a large flower pot in a sheltered place outside. We’re hoping that she’ll started thinking of it as 'home’ and stay there, but as a precaution against escape, Happy Camera Boy spent yesterday sewing up a net curtain into a sort of soft cage to drape on a framework over the pot.