Hummingbird Predators: The Praying Mantis Risk, Explained

Start with the number that matters most: predation is a minor cause of hummingbird mortality compared to cold snaps, habitat loss, window strikes, and outdoor cats, which our guide to hummingbird lifespan covers in detail. Most hummingbirds that die don't die to a predator at all. But "minor" isn't "never," and one predator in particular, the praying mantis, is worth a dedicated look for a simple reason: it's the one risk on this list a backyard birder can actually see coming and do something about. Here's the full predator landscape, what's documented versus anecdotal, and a real plan for the mantis problem specifically.

The Predators That Actually Get Documented

Per Georgia Wildlife, a division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, cats rank as "the main hummingbird predator in the U.S.," a point our lifespan post already covers at length, so we won't repeat the case here beyond the cross-link. Ranking second on the same list: the Chinese mantis, an invasive species introduced to Pennsylvania in 1896 and now established across much of the country. Beyond insects, the same article documents rat snakes taking hummingbirds directly (the author describes witnessing it), along with bullfrogs and other large frog species, orb-weaver spiders, and green darner dragonflies. On the avian side, small hawks (American kestrel, sharp-shinned hawk, Cooper's hawk), owls, grackles, blue jays, herons, tanagers, and loggerhead shrikes all appear on the same documented list, alongside gulls. None of these are common causes of death; they're documented instances, which is a different thing, and the article's own framing supports that: it notes plainly that "snake predation on rubythroats is rare."

The Roadrunner Video That Got People Worried

A specific piece of footage drives a lot of search traffic on this topic: a Greater Roadrunner ambushing hummingbirds at a backyard feeder, captured on camera by photographer Roy Dunn and reported by Audubon. It's real, and it's worth knowing about if you live in roadrunner range in the Southwest, but the same article undercuts the alarm a little: Dunn observed that the roadrunner "only makes a successful catch about once in 10 tries," missing repeatedly over nearly three hours of setup before one attempt worked. Roadrunners typically eat lizards and insects; a hummingbird at a feeder is an opportunistic target, not a routine one, and a strike rate of roughly 1 in 10 is a long way from the roadrunner being an efficient hummingbird hunter.

The Praying Mantis Problem, Specifically

This is the predator worth a genuine action plan, because unlike a hawk or a snake, a mantis staking out a feeder is something you can typically spot and remove. Per Birds and Blooms, "a large mantis is fully capable of catching and eating hummingbirds, so this is a serious issue," though the same piece is careful to note that smaller mantises generally lack the size to take a full-grown ruby-throated hummingbird. That size detail lines up with Georgia Wildlife DNR's point above: the species most often implicated is the Chinese mantis specifically, not the smaller native mantis species most yards also host, which is why "a mantis in the garden" and "a mantis worth worrying about near a feeder" aren't automatically the same thing.

If you find one perched on or near a feeder, Birds and Blooms recommends relocating it "several miles away" to a natural habitat rather than simply moving it a few feet, since a mantis moved a short distance will often find its way back to the same reliable food source. A second option, useful if you'd rather not handle the insect directly, is temporarily removing the feeder for a few days; without an easy meal nearby, the mantis typically moves on. Trimming back dense plants or flowers immediately next to the feeder also removes the ambush cover a mantis relies on, since these insects are sit-and-wait predators rather than active hunters.

What to Do About Egg Cases (It Depends Which Mantis)

A natural follow-up question is whether to find and destroy mantis egg cases (called oothecae) over the winter to head off next year's population near a feeder. The honest answer depends on which species built the case, and getting this wrong in either direction has a real cost. Per Birds and Blooms, a case left untouched lets the hatching nymphs disperse naturally across the yard in spring, and mantises generally play a useful role controlling other garden pests. But per the Brandywine Conservancy, that blanket "leave it alone" advice doesn't hold once you separate species: the invasive Chinese mantis, which can reach up to five inches and is the species most often implicated in hummingbird predation, and the invasive European mantis, around four inches, both outcompete and even prey on the native Carolina mantis, which tops out around three inches and rarely poses a real risk to an adult hummingbird. The Conservancy's recommendation is to destroy invasive egg cases before they hatch (crushing them, or cutting one open and submerging it in water) while leaving native Carolina mantis egg cases undisturbed to support the species that isn't the problem in the first place.

Telling them apart from the case itself is doable without an expert. Per Tyrant Farms, a Chinese mantis egg case is tan to light brown with a "dense, papery-bubbly texture almost like spray foam insulation" and a rounded, compact shape, typically an inch or more across on a twig or branch. A Carolina mantis case shares the same general color and texture but is "smaller, more elongated, and flatter," a shape difference that holds up even when the color alone doesn't. If a case is small, narrow, and flattened against the stem, it's most likely the native species worth leaving alone; if it's larger, rounder, and more conspicuously bubbled, it's the one worth removing before it hatches near a feeder.

Spiders: A Smaller but Real Risk

Mantises get most of the attention, but Georgia Wildlife DNR's list also flags orb-weaver spiders, whose webs are occasionally strong enough to entangle a hummingbird investigating flowers or a feeder at close range, along with a newer concern: the invasive Joro spider, which has spread across much of the Southeast in recent years and builds unusually large, dense webs in exactly the kind of open, sunny spots hummingbirds favor. As with mantises, the practical response is about web placement rather than eliminating spiders outright; a web strung directly across a flight path to a feeder is worth relocating or removing, while the same spider a few feet away doing what spiders do is no particular threat. Orb-weavers and Joro spiders both play a legitimate role controlling flying insects the rest of the season, which is the same tradeoff at play with mantises: the goal is managing a specific, located risk near a feeder, not treating every predator or web in the yard as a problem to eliminate.

Feeder Placement as Prevention

Across nearly every predator on this list, from mantises to ambush-prone snakes, the common thread is cover. A feeder hung in the open, a few feet from the nearest dense foliage rather than directly against it, gives a hummingbird room to see a threat coming and gives ambush predators less to hide in. This is true whether the nectar in that feeder is a homemade mix or a no-boil powder like Nectar Bliss's; placement and visibility matter more for predation risk than what's dissolved in the reservoir. Pairing thoughtful placement with routine feeder cleaning, covered in our feeder cleaning guide, covers the two things actually within a backyard birder's control.