Alien from another pond...?

Today we discovered a new critter (or species) in our pond. With the weather much improved from yesterday we managed to spend some time enjoying the pond again and Shelley spotted our new friend fairly quickly.

After some fevered Googling we found that the Leech (our second leech species after our Erpobdella Octoculata discovery last year) is probably a Protoclepsis tasselata which can be identified by the number of eyes it has. We knew it was different from our original leeches as they swim (much like Sea Snakes) whereas this character caterpillared it's way round the tub.

We finally identified our new Leech after stumbling across this site

I had a wide choice of blips today as the garden kicked off big time today. We had three Ducks visit (one solo and a separate pair) which led to several shots of Ducks on the pond or in flight and also after our 'fun' with the leech Shelley spotted a VERY small Toad (no bigger than a fingernail) wandering around in the grass; a pefect Amphibious miniature! in he end I chose the underside shot of the Leech as it is nice and bright and is a good view of the Leech stretching out and shows it's sucker and body shape well.