We'd capture praying mantises, and place two in a box, face to face, and hold our breath, expecting them to fight to the death. And they often did. We were cruel, yes, but we were kids surrounded by the unblessings of adult cruelty. Only later did we unlearn those violent lessons (not all of us learned) but let's not romanticize mantises. Today, I watched a video of a mantis snaring a hummingbird at a backyard feeder. That successful hunt seemed to violate physics. How can a mantis be that strong? Dear humans, how often have you been unknowingly wrong? My errors seem to be infinite. So, dear birder, are you aware that your sugar water, however sweet, is often just bait for the winged and doomed? Ah, we humans are often most cruel when we assume that what we do is only good.
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Dear humans, how often/ have you been unknowingly/wrong? For that reason, I never feed wild birds. They don't really need our help. And I don't want my cat to have easy hunting.
Oh yes. In Florida my brother & I liked to toss red-and-black ants in among what we called "bullhead" red ants & hope they'd fight it out. The tiny, vicious fire ants mostly showed up after we'd grown up. We were blithely unaware of violence in the adult world. The war in Korea didn't "count." Even though our Uncle Jim was on B-29s out of Okinawa. We were not terribly perceptive kids