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Iris oratoria
Only found this just now while going through last months pictures of birds. It was on the lower trunk of a tree not far from the bird but outside the area of focus Hopefully the colouring on the tail may give a clue to the ID.
Garden
Just for fun, here are some photos of Mantids displaying that are very interesting :)
http://www.theswellelife.com/swelle_life...
Looks good to me, I have updated the page. This picture shows the threat display http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gottes... Just wish I had seen it at the time, I could have taken a much better picture. I don't think the Black Redstart, which was quite close to it, would have tackled anything that big!