Ponds. And leeches.

[urocyon]

It's a lovely sunny day here, and I finally got around to clearing some choking watercress and blanketweed out of the patio pond. With a stick, thank goodness.

I am so not sticking my arm in there now for further cleaning, at least without huge gauntlets. Look what I found!


Yep, it's a leech. Next to a tangle of watercress roots and duckweed.

Urgh. I had thought I saw something leechlike when I was cleaning out the prefilter in November or December, and it appears I was right.

It's probably an excellent thing that there are no fish in there now. (Otherwise, I'd have gone for a spring cleaning before this.) Just plants, and snails, and leeches. *shudder*

And probably mosquito larvae, with nothing in there to eat them now, but I'm just trying not to think about that.

While I've never had a leech on me, they have always seriously squicked me. Now I'm going to postpone getting in the shower for a while, what with the water and all, since I've already got crawly skin.

Edit: It looks to be an Erpobdella species, which are apparently unlikely to leech onto humans. It is a very small leech, as you can see in comparison to the duckweed. According to someone who knows a lot more about this than I do, "Most British leeches feeds on snails and other small invertebrates, only a few suck blood." Another source adds, "There are only two species of leech in the UK that fed on human blood, both of which are very rare." At least the ones we've got may take care of the mosquito larvae!

I am still not putting my bare arm in there. I did put it and another one I spotted in the plant tangle back into the water, though.

Comments

[greenbirds]

Leeches: EW. Ew, ew, ew. *shudders* I don't care if they're prone to sucking human blood or not, they make my skin crawl. Good luck with the cleaning, though!

[urocyon]

I'm almost glad that all the comments on this so far show that I'm not alone in the kinda irrational aversion to even leeches which don't prey on humans. :) I was feeling a little silly, but...urgh.

Thanks! I'm just holding off on finishing the cleaning job for now.

[ciciaye.livejournal.com]

I've never had a leech on me either, but I feel the same way about them as you do! Urrrgggghhh...

I wonder how they got into your pond?

When I was young I remember going to Kenfig, near Port Talbot where my Gran lived in Wales. There's a nice beach there and a lake. This particular time, my cousins (but thankfully not me!) decided they wanted to paddle in the lake. When I saw the leeches they came out with (not stuck to them, thankfully, just caught in the tub they'd been trying to catch fish with), I was very glad I hadn't gone in!

[urocyon-c.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wondered how they got there too. Maybe on birds' legs, apparently; though the birds stay away from it while I'm anywhere close, I'd be amazed if they didn't visit it. I did take the bird netting off it, with no fish in there.

The post is now edited to reflect that I looked up what kind of leeches those are, and they probably won't latch onto humans. Apparently ones that do are rare in Britain. They still freak me out.

Come to think of it, I'm surprised I never got any leeches on me as a kid, as much time as I liked to spend in rivers and lakes! Usually not slow-flowing bits of the rivers, though--I guess adults were taking us elsewhere for a reason. :) There are more of the human bloodsucking kind (http://www.wvdnr.gov/wildlife/magazine/archive/04Summer/What_I_Did_Last_Summer.shtm) where I grew up.

No wonder you were glad you hadn't gone in. :-|

[ciciaye.livejournal.com]

Did you ever see the film 'Stand By Me'? Apparently the bit where the kids go for a swim in a slow-flowing river and come out with leeches on their legs is based on a true happening in Stephen King's childhood (he and his friends went down to the river to play..."Hey, I wonder why no-one ever swims in there?"...they went for a swim, his cousin did an underwater handstand and had them all over his legs...)
Urrrggghhh...