The horror! Was a praying mantis lying in wait for Walnut Creek hummingbird?

DEAR JOAN: A few days ago, I found a praying mantis hanging out on one of my hummingbird feeders.  A friend told me that praying mantises attack and eat hummingbirds! Can this be true?  Should I have moved him to another location?

Suzanne Renaghan, Walnut Creek

DEAR SUZANNE: Halloween came early in your yard.

As improbable and horrific as it might be, praying mantids can and will attack hummingbirds, but fortunately, it’s a rare event.

The mantis has to be really hungry to go after a hummer. The two are about the same length — 4 inches, on average — but the hummer is far bigger prey than a mantis normally goes after. It will eat the hummer, but it really only eats the internal organs, and yes, it’s as bloody and gruesome as you might suspect.

Keeping mantids off the feeders is probably more work than it’s worth, given that hummingbird attacks are uncommon. Most other options also aren’t very effective. You can hang a baffle above the feeder — a baffle is a large, clear bowl-like object that hangs upside down above the feeder — but some mantids can fly, so the baffle isn’t that helpful.

Moving the feeders away from shrubs, where mantids might lay in wait, can be somewhat helpful.

If you find one on the feeder, use a stick to gently relocate the mantis to a shrub. You don’t want to do anything to harm or discourage a praying mantis from staying in your yard. They eat a lot of insects, especially the ones we don’t really want in the garden.

DEAR JOAN: Where do slugs come from?

Suddenly, they are coming out of my potted plants. They are so slimy! I can’t get their “goo” off my hands without a good scrubbing with soap and water. Any suggestions?

Alexa, San Rafael

DEAR ALEXA: When a mommy slug and a daddy slug really love each other…

Slugs love moist, hidden areas, like inside your pots, under logs and rocks and in unused, shady corners. The slugs hide out in those areas during the day, then come out at night to eat and leave slimy trails. That hard-to-scrub-off-your-hands goo is necessary for them to move around. They use the goo to grease the path ahead.

While hanging out during the day in the spring and summer, they’re also laying eggs, which later hatch to give you even more slugs. Mating is simple because slugs are hermaphroditic, meaning they have both male and female parts, and while they usually prefer a partner, sometimes they fertilize their own eggs.

The ultimate and highly ambitious solution is to create a yard that is welcoming to wildlife, which will eat the slugs for you. The quicker solution is to use a pesticide. Sluggo Plus works on snails and slugs, and it’s safe to use around pets.