Comments

• Hi everyone, we often see Blue Tongues in our back yard but in the late afternoon today we had a visitor at our living room window that looked different to the others that we have around here. I am wondering if it is a Western Blue Tongue Skink? And if so how common are they up here in the Blue Mountains? Sorry for the poor photo...he moved away quickly (under our house) before I could get a decent photo. He was enjoying the last of the sunshine today (a rare commodity at present!) His colouring was much lighter than usual, he did not in fact have a blue tongue (do young have no blue tongues?) Thanks
• PLEASE HELP!! My question about leeches is about physical barriers as a way to minimise the chances of my family coming into contact with leeches in our back yard. We back onto a slow flowing (and pooling) stream and over the past few years we have been getting increasing number of leeches latching on. The stream is down a gentle bank (about 500mm vertically) then there is about 5 metres of vegetation (about 3 metres of weeds on the stream side of a chicken wire fence then 2 metres of formal gardens that forms the boundary of our gardens).
  It has now got to the point that my wife will no longer hang out the washing, the washing line is another 10 metres back from the rear garden (a grass lawn) as she has had leeches attach themselves to her legs (despite tukcing in trousers etc). She is so concerned about the 'problem' that she has now asked that we move home (it is that stressful to her). As the rear boundary is currently unfenced (or effectively so), I'd like to know if I was to have a pine fence installed whether this may form a physical barrier (my thoughts were to line the back side of the fence with something akin to a rabbit barrier, eg black plastic attached to the fence then dug into the soil slightly). I realise that I will never be able to fully block pathways but I thought that this may be enough to minimise the chances of leeches migrating to the back yard? I would certainly be able to put in place a reasonably secure barrier for the back fence and back towards the house by about 5- 10 metres on each side.
  We have a wonderful home with lovely gardens and a fabulous back yard that our young (2 and 3) children love to play in. Last summer we had around 10 leech latch on (that we know of) and probably the same number of near misses. Thoughts? Suggestions?