After I converted the pictures on my computer to resize them for publication, and saw the horrid quality, I did go back out and try to spot him - no luck as of yet. He looks much as one expects a mantis to look… except 1/8th his size.
Mini-Mantis.
What you saw was a baby mantis. They are neat little things, aren’t they? When my husband was a kid, a teacher took away a praying mantis egg sac, convinced that what he really had was a stick. Boy, was she surprised, and apologetic when they hatched over Spring Break. (She still tells the tale to her students, my husband’s brother teased him that he was a celebrity when she told his class about it.) Recently, we had to relocate another mantis egg sac, it was on our window frame beside our bed. I teased my husband that it was because he was adored by all praying manti, and they only wanted to be near him.