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leeches redux

Subject: leeches redux
From: "Bernie Krause" bigchirp1
Date: Sat Mar 17, 2007 7:24 am ((PDT))
The leaf leeches of Australia might be a bit less agile than those in 
Indonesia or Vietnamh, Syd. Olympic jumpers, those. Actually, they 
don't jump. But they do drop out of trees when sensing heat coming 
from objects on the path below...typically within a meter or so. And 
of course they attach themselves to warm objects as they brush by, as 
you suggested.

Like I said earlier, the worst part wasn't the attachment to me. But 
to the equipment I had laid on the ground. The power supply warmed up 
quite a bit as did the recorder. I had left it for not more than ten 
mnutes and when I returned, it was completely covered with the little 
critters. Every mic and headphone input had leeches in them. They 
even found their way through the tiny holes cut in the Sony TCD 
D10PRO II speaker packaging. They found their collective ways into 
the transport mechanism. Took a couple of days to clean the device 
out completely so that it would work, again. Other stories, too. But 
I think that illustrates the problem sufficiently.

Bernie

>I write from Australia and I don't know to what extent our leeches may
>differ from those under discussion.  but for what it's worth ...
>
>I grew up on a farm adjacent to subtropical rainforest.  Leeches were
>plentiful and considered only a minor embuggerance.  Their clot-preventing
>saliva meant you might bleed for a while, but so what?  The very minor
>blood-loss was no big deal.
>
>But late in life I made the acquaintance of a bloke who found blood in the
>boots sufficiently off-putting to want to do something about it.  His
>solution was to sew a pair of thick socks onto the bottom of thick
>flannelette pyjamas - both sufficiently thick that a leech couldn't get at
>his skin through them.  (I didn't inquire whether any looped their way up to
>the top of his pyjamas.  Which is where our scrub ticks would certainly go.)
>
>As far a I know our leeches don't drop on you from above - just wait on the
>shrubbery and fasten on as you brush past.  So for a small party in single
>file, the leader alerts the leech which then gets someone further back ion
>the line.
>
>I once took an overseas visitor to a local rainforest national park.
>Apparently where he came from they didn't have terrestrial leeches; only
>aquatic ones.  Back in town we're in a hotel lounge having a quiet beer, and
>he happens to look down at his ankle: a fully engorged leech.
>
>     "What's that?" he says.
>
>     "It's a leech," I reply.
>
>"The filthy thing!" he says, and before I can stop him, he drops it on the
>hotel's nice clean terrazzo floor and stamps on it.  Blood explodes for half
>a metre or so all round.  Spectacular, it was.
>
>Cheers
>
>Syd
>
>
>
>
>
>"Microphones are not ears,
>Loudspeakers are not birds,
>A listening room is not nature."
>Klas Strandberg
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>


-- 
Wild Sanctuary
P. O. Box 536
Glen Ellen, CA 95442
t. 707-996-6677
f. 707-996-0280
http://www.wildsanctuary.com




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