Crouching mantid, leaping spider

The garden is sprouting into action and the insects are definitely on the increase. As you can see from the picture below, the Hydrangea bushes have come back with healthy green leaves but I have already spied a few leaf or plant hoppers so time will tell how much they damage the plant.

Fresh green spring growth over the two Hydrangea bushes.

After saying my mantids are back, this week has been worrying as I hadn't seen any except this one below which was the victim of one of the Jumping spiders which have moved back into the Hydrangea hunting ground!

I also witnessed this Jumping spider putting on a great display in front of a smaller one until it had lured it close enough to capture. It was amazing.

Here is an animated gif I made to show how they jump from leaf to leaf:

Autoawesome gif of Jumping Spider

Jumping spider with a small jumping spider for its meal.

The little hunter became the hunted when this jumping spider caught it for its lunch!

This sight really saddened me and I kept searching for its little siblings in vain all week. I had started to believe that all three had suffered a similar fate when yesterday I was telling my son of the situation as we walked past and there was a little mantid in plain sight!

I investigated further with camera in hand and found about eight more tiny mantid nymphs on the bushes and the Cumquat tree beside them.

They really are still very tiny but clearly many of them are able to avoid capture and also catch their own meal which is a challenging job for one so small.

Baby mantid looking at me.

I have also found three adult Spined Citrus bugs now and some of their eggs; three batches in fact! If they are all successful, my citrus trees could be in trouble however I am willing to leave them in order to see what happens. I'd like to see the nymphs when they are little which I didn't see last year and I remember that last year many of the eggs were not succesful anyway. There is a parasitic wasp that lays in them and I suspect that is what happened.

Spined Citrus bug eggs on cumquat.

Spined Citrus bug eggs on leaf.

Last year I found some Katydid nymphs on the Cumquat tree but this year, like with the Citrus bugs, I have found an adult one at the very start of the season so I suspect there will be offspring from this one too.

Katydid adult enjoying a Cumquat flower.

Finally, a little brownish plant or leaf hopper I found which was new to me as well. Last season's were all those bluish green ones.

Small brownish leaf/plant hopper on Hydrangea leaf. I love the markings on this one!