[NatureNS] ticks at Round Hill

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Thread-Topic: [NatureNS] ticks at Round Hill
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Hi Bev:

I've been around the woods alot in areas where I would normally expect to find dog ticks.  They are certainly plentiful in Queens County coastal, but othewise I've not had any ticks on my outings within Lunenburg County, inland Queens County and Annapolis County.  I know the deer tick (black-legged tick) is certainly populous in Lunenburg County.  Many of my friends have ended up with lymes disease and needed treatment.  I have one friend who has had it three times now.  I've had myself tested a few times with bullseye rash, likely in my case it was from a spider.  So far I've escaped lymes disease.  

James R. Hirtle
LaHave  
________________________________________
From: naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca <naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca> on behalf of Bev Wigney <bkwigney@gmail.com>
Sent: May 27, 2016 11:52 AM
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
Subject: [NatureNS] ticks at Round Hill

All,

Just some follow-up observations from the Round Hill area east of
Annapolis Royal.

I'm returning to this topic again because I find this of interest.
We're now close to the end of May.  In total, I think I may have
removed 1 tick from myself and maybe 5 from my two Rough Collies
(Lassie type collies).  Granted, we've spent most of our time on my
own property which is along a brook - deciduous forest, grasses,
raspberry canes and some brush, and wetland plants along the brook.  I
am always in the tall vegetation and frequently take the dogs along
the shoreline or for wades in the brook.  Last week, I spent a couple
of mornings cutting a path through raspberry canes and brush down by
the brook, so it's not like I've been avoiding typical tick areas of
my property.  As for host animals -- There are deer all around my
property (last spring, a doe had her fawns in the forest right behind
my vegetable garden).  Lots of other wildlife wander through.  So, I'm
kind of amazed by the lack of ticks so far this year.  I mention this
only because I wonder about the effects of certain kinds of weather.
The winter before last, on this list and in some news articles that I
read, there was speculation that the deep snow would shelter the ticks
and they would be plentiful last year.  While there were some in May
2015, they sort of konked out by early summer and I saw no others for
the rest of the season, so the snow doesn't seem to have been
advantageous to them - at least, not on my property.  I was expecting
things to rebound this spring as there were always a lot of ticks on
this property in previous years.  No rebound yet -- which is actually
rather pleasant. Also, it seems that the few ticks I've found are all
Wood (Dog) ticks.  Still I wonder about the sparsity.  Older people in
this area that I've spoken to -- for example, my neighbours who just
passed away this year were both 90 -- told me that they thought ticks
seemed to move into an area and be bad and then go away after a time.
 We definitely had a boom year for them about 3 summers ago.  They
would even show up on my moth sheets at night when I was out
photographing moths.  By the way, I have not used Advantix on either
of my dogs this year and used only 1/2 a tube on each of them in early
spring 2015.  Previous to that, I was treating each of them once in
late April and then around early June.  These days, I'm trying to
avoid using it at all unless I think the ticks are really bad and
warrant using something systemic.  I am still vaccinating both of them
for Lyme each year though.  In any case, the lack of ticks on the dogs
cannot be attributed to using a systemic product on them.  It will be
interesting to see how the rest of the summer goes.

Bev Wigney
Round Hill, NS

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