Praying Mantises!!

Every October I see around 10 - 15 Praying Mantises. But this October, I've seen around 36 - 45 Mantises. I mainly see green ones, but sometimes I see brown ones. I like the green Mantis better and I love it when they think you are going to do something and they show their wings and make a sound.  They show their big fake eyes that are actually black spots on their front legs. I feed them the following food: flies,grasshoppers, ants and caterpillars. Some species can eat snakes, lizards,  rats and even rabbits!

Praying mantis eating a gecko! 

 But not the ones that I have :( . My favourite one I have is missing  its' front legs so that means that it can't eat. I saved its' life, yey!  I feed him every day and he loves it. His favourite food is caterpillars and grasshoppers. His favourite place to go is on a drum in our lounge! ;) He is the coolest mantis and I will never forget him. Praying Mantises are my favorite insect and always will be. But nothing can beat a snake! I really want to see the praying mantises that can eat a snake.

here is a video i made of a Mantis eating a Grasshopper

A really cool film we saw about the Mantis

My Trip To The Beach

As soon as I got to the beach I went swimming in a lake near the beach. I was hunting for frogs and I saw a HUGE toad. I caught it and showed it to my mum. She said it was the biggest toad shes ever seen, I agreed.

Me and Bufo bufo

We went to the camp and when I was walking up the path I saw a snake. It was brown and blue. Then I went lizard hunting with Archie my brother and we saw more than 15 green lizards and one big brown snake.

The Green Lizard me and my dad found

We went to get dad but he said he was too tired so he didn't come:(  but the next day me and my dad went lizard hunting and found a beautiful Balkan Green Lizard. Later on that day, we were swimming in the sea, the water was lovely and warm. The next day we went swimming again and I thought I saw a shark! I was screaming  "shark shark!!" but no one believed me. Then mum saw it too and shouted "shark shark!!!" and dad was right next to it,  dad turned around and said "it's a dolphin" and we stopped worrying but we kept watching the dolphins until they left.

The dolphins in the black sea

Fishing

My friend, dad and I went fishing in Sheynovo. We left the house at 5:30pm and got there around 5:40pm. As soon as we got there we fished. The first 3 mins or so we caught nothing. Then we caught a carp. It was small, I gave it to my friend for him too see it. He was amazed by it, because it was the first time he ever went fishing or held a fish. Then I gave him the rod and he caught a very small perch. He was so excited that he caught it. Then it was my go to fish and I caught another carp and gave it to my friend to let it go. After that we went to another spot in the lake and I caught 2 bigger perch and carp. My friend caught another small perch and let it go. Dad said we had to go in five min and I didn't catch any thing else. It was time to go.

Small Carp

 

Grass Snake In Our Pond

My mum was feeding the chickens when she heard a strange noise. Dad said it sounded like a fledgling so mum went to look. It was actually a frog that looked like it was suck under a stone. He pulled it and when he lifted it there was a grass snake eating the frog!!! The snake let go of the frog and it slithered under the rock again. My friend and I waited for the snake to come out again, but we only got to see its head. The next day I was lucky to see the whole snake sunbathing.

The Grass Snake in are garden

Facts about Crayfish

 Here is some general information about Crayfish

•  There are 500 species of cray fish 350 are found in north America. 
• Adult crayfish are usually 2 to 6 inches (5 to 15 centimeters) long. 
• Crayfish live under rocks and debris and muddy bottoms of  freshwater lakes and rivers.
• Crayfish eat worms, insects, molluscs and vegetation.

• the specie that we caught was Astacus astacus. 
• They breed in October and November 
• The female caries here eggs under here tail until may.

Now I know that the female carries her eggs from October until May, I'm not going to hunt them during this period.

Astacus astacus

Fishing in Buzovgrad

Me and my family went fishing in Buzovgrad it is a lake. The lake was dried up more then normal. We went swimming the water was really warm. I swam under water and opened  my eyes and the water was green! I thought that was dreadful! We went to eat and we realized mum forgot the sandwiches! That really sucked. After we ate we went fishing we caught fifteen Sunfish and one Perch. Grandad caught the Perch and I caught the Sunfish. There were some men near us they caught 2 humungus Catfish!!!  The Catfish were amazing  I loved their orange moustashes!

Fishing In Pavel Banya

Me my friend and my cousin Harrison went fishing at the river Tunzdha near Pavel Banya.We fished next to a wide  water fall, it was very deep and there were lots of other people fishing.We were fishing for Perch, we caught a bucket full of  baby Perch. I love Perch I think there very amazing fish, the patterns are unique and I love the orange fins on them. Perch are predators, they hunt other fish.

Perch

Whilst me my friend were fishing  my cousin found a dead grass snake with a baby Perch in its mouth!!!! There were lots of people catching the small Perch and we were concerned  that there were not going to be any more next year. When  we got home and my dad saw the bucket he was a little bit disappointed because we had taken so many small fish. We fried some of  them up, they were really tasty the only thing was the guts were really horrible. We put the rest of them in the freezer.

River Tunzdha