Mantis eggs, Bell Cedar

For a good part of the late summer and early fall, I spent a fair amount of time combing the overgrown fields of the Bell Cedar Swamp preserve for praying mantises. I found a few of these ferocious and fascinating predators, but not nearly as many as I'd spotted the previous year. That's not really surprising, since insect populations tend to bounce all over the place, and, in any case, I'm figuring the drought probably played hob with the best-laid plans of many critters. Not only did I find few adults this past year, I found no egg cases, and this, of course, is doubly worrisome. But the vegetation was pretty thick, and I reckoned that I may well have missed eggs deposited deeper in the field than I normally dared to explore. The place was, after all, heavy with deer ticks. But with the leaves fallen and the field more-or-less open for view, I found one case I'd overlooked. No doubt there are more waiting to be discovered... and, more importantly, waiting to send forth 2015's mantis crop.