Zaltana Anatolians

The Praying Mantis

I was out watering my shrubs when I noticed this praying mantis running towards me. It seemed determined to come to me, so I moved away from it, I am not too fond of bugs coming too close. At first I totally forgot that I had my camera on me. By the time I remembered, the insect had gone towards a shrub that had water all around it.
So I shot one picture of it sitting there. I realized that I had the sun in front of me, so I moved to the other side of this rather large praying mantis to take another shot. I noticed it was putting its front legs into the water as if to test how deep it is, then, to my utter amazement,
it started walking through the water to the shrub. It has never occurred to me that an insect that can fly, would decide to cross a shallow body of water on foot to get to a shrub. This is the first adult I have seen this year, I do see quite a few small white ones, I am assuming they are very young. I am quite fascinated with the praying mantis, so I am hoping some of them will make our place their home so I can take more pictures of them. I have often seen them stay in the same place for many weeks.
I used to have one sit on my window screen every evening for many weeks, I really missed it when it disappeared.