The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

Holiday Greetings from Chateau Nightingale-Thrush

November 25, 2022

Last week, I ordered leeches as a birthday present for the wife.  Hirudo medicinalis.  Medicinal leeches.  My language of love.  (I’m her Bogart; she’s my Hepburn.)  She has a nasty contusion and hematoma on her lower leg from our kayaking adventure at Dana Point (my fault) and I figured the bloodsuckers would do the trick.

They arrived the day before Thanksgiving, so I picked them up at the post office and ferried them to Flagstaff where I would meet the wife and kids.  What’s turkey and dressing without leeches?  The kids warned me their homes were leech-free zones.

Too late for that.  I was on the road. (Warning: Graphic photos of feeding leeches.)

Medical practitioners have used leeches for more than 2,500 years, since the time of ancient Egypt when leeches served to treat infections, dental issues, and skin diseases.  In modern times, leeches gained traction as a tool for reattaching tissue to the body, reviving collapsed veins and improving blood circulation following reconstructive surgery for a severed finger, for example.

Leeches are annelid worms with two suckers, five pairs of eyes, and three jaws, each with more than 100 teeth—imagine a tiny version of the Graboid sandworm from the 1990 film Tremors (fiction inspired by nature!).  The teeth work to saw a Y-shaped incision into the skin. But, because their saliva contains an anesthetic, the bite is painless.  Leeches also secrete enzymes that act as anticoagulants to keep the blood flowing—even after they finish their meal, I understand, like up to 10 hours.   

So, between butterflying the Butterball for the grill and mashing potatoes, I attached several leeches to the wife’s leg near the bruising contusion and allowed them to feed for 30 minutes or so until they engorged themselves and dropped off in a tryptophan-like stupor.  The plan is to repeat as necessary.  Two or three times a day for three to seven days.  An ounce or two of blood drawn per leech per application.  Easy.

If the wife doesn’t fatten up all nine leeches I bought her—they will live up to year on one feeding—I’ll let one or two suck on my varicose veins.

First application. The leeches prefer to feed together in family gatherings.

Third application. Definite improvement with swelling and pain. The wife is pleased. A real win for me.

For my birthday, my 7-year-old granddaughter created a shirt for me, designing and painting the image of a famous bird on the front, the first orange-billed nightingale-thrush documented in Arizona (by me, in my yard).  As a nice touch, she added a bird dropping on the shoulder.  The best gift ever.  I’ll wear it every time I go out with a group of birders to let them know who I am.

They will know me by the poop.

Homemade wine from this summer’s grape bounty. The first bottles of “sunlight held together by water.”

My Kayaking Queen…sans the leeches.

Thanks for subscribing! More birds (and less leeches) on the way!