Ponds. And leeches.

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.