Watch your feeders and flowers for unexpected hummingbirds. The praying mantis can harm your hummingbirds. Learn to protect them.
“I've removed a praying mantis from my hummingbird feeder several times and cut back the plants near it, but it keeps coming back.” Millington, Tennessee resident Terry Hathcock asks, “What can I do to keep it away?”
Do Praying Mantises Kill Hummingbirds?
Hummingbirds can be eaten by giant mantises, which is a major issue. A mantis hooked on your feeder may return to catch a hummer. The mantis could be caught and released in a wild region a few miles away.
Take down the feeder for a few days and let the mantis find another area to hunt if killing it seems too much labor. It sprang up and scared away hummingbirds that came to eat as they saw them. Janice Bogott of Germantown, Tennessee, asks “Why?”
These curious animals sometimes sit on hummingbird feeders. Mantises seek microscopic insects. Bees and other bugs may be caught at feeders.
But large mantises can catch and kill hummingbirds. A ruby-throated hummingbird may not have fit in your mantis photo, but we move it if we see one near a feeder just in case.
"I found it odd that this hummingbird circled this flower but never landed." I observed the praying mantis hiding under the flower. I swiftly moved the mantis so the hummer could land on the blossom without being scared.