Katy Did Camouflage Well

It's got to the point that every time I head out into the garden to do even the most mundane tasks, such as this morning's hedge-trimming, I keep my little pocket camera handy, because you never know what or who is going to pop up.

I would never have spotted this katydid in the murraya hedge itself, as its color camouflage renders it invisible, but the whirring of the cordless hedge trimmer proved to be sheer terror for our little leaf-chomping beauty, and up he or she popped to safety on a nearby verandah post.

Noticed fair-sized chunks of foliage being chomped
but never able to locate the culprit? This could be
the person responsible, the katydid.

Katy tolerated my annoying habit of poking a camera in her face – "damn those garden papparazzi!" – for about 10 seconds, before she miraculously sproinged 30cm in one leap, back into the hedge. Try as hard as I might, I couldn't see her anymore, despite actually seeing where she landed. It's like she dived into a green lake and she submerged and was gone.