Praying Mantis Spring

This winter this blog has hibernated, as have I. Friends, colleagues,  and people I meet in line at the grocery store, form a chorus: this winter was the worst; this winter was bad. This winter was a sag behind the eyes, a pull to exhaustion.  We need some sun and warmth generated energy. As one friend posted to Facebook: spring, I’m done with the foreplay. We’re ready for growth, for change, rebirth.

 And it’s happening or it’s here, what we wished for:  spring peepers are peeping, the daffodils are out, the forsythia is in bloom. On a walk this week I spied three garter snakes. On a paddle last week there were painted turtles sunning on logs. Every day I add a new bird to my spring list, in that way that birders do, noting the first of the year (FOY). Yesterday a Virginia Rail sounded from the swamp at Buttercup and a Broad Winged Hawk soared near Stissing Mountain. But perhaps the greatest emergence this week: my praying mantis hatched.

Friends immediately questioned the “my” of the praying mantis. So here’s the story. Last fall, Christina, one of my wonderful Bard students, found three mantis sacks (ootheca, the scientists call them and I like the word) in a field that was to be mowed. She gave them to me to keep in my refrigerator through the winter. Six weeks ago she texted it was time to take them out. I placed them in a brown back, sealed it and waited. About two weeks ago I started checking every morning for any stirring. And then on Wednesday evening I entered my living room and I sensed life beyond the two cats who greeted me at the door. I opened one bag and there they were, barely the length of a fingernail. Mantis limbs at birth are as thin as sewing thread and the eyes a polka dot. But the parts are all there, the long limbs and bent forelimbs ready to fold into prayer. Christina brought over a friend and we  marveled and exclaimed and took baby pictures before releasing the creatures into the night (before they ate each other).

The next morning I examined the egg sack; more mantids were emerging into the world. By the end of the day the little insects were gone, eaten or fled or on their way toward praying mantis adulthood, to lay more sacks in the fall.

Now I am off to listen for more stirrings, more beginnings. I’ll be writing more soon.