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Joseph Fiscella: Week 10 at Suffolk County Vector Control

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This week was the tenth and final week of my internship at Suffolk County Vector Control, and it truly feels like the summer flew by. On Monday and Tuesday, we wrapped up our vegetation sampling at two additional marsh sites. There was not a huge amount of diversity in the species we found this week compared to last week, but there were some grids this week that contained Phragmites, a tall reed grass commonly found along the edges of the marshes. While the heat and humidity this week did make the vegetation sampling tough work, it was still enjoyable to participate in new methods of population surveillance. Our last outing of the summer was on Thursday. Vector Control was informed of areas in Patchogue, NY that had high mosquito numbers. We had never been to the site before, so it was a bit of investigative work. While we barely found any mosquito larvae in our dips, the sheer number of adult mosquitoes flying around was overwhelming. This, alongside the unevenness of the marsh floor,...
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Joseph Fiscella: Week 9 at Suffolk County Vector Control

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This week marked our final week of tick sampling. The interns and I went to all three of our tick sites on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday for one last round of sampling for the season. As expected, the number of tick larvae was considerably high, but this was not a surprise since we have been collecting a lot of larvae for the past several weeks. To review, the two ticks that we find the most at our grids are the deer tick ( Ixodes scapularis ) and the lonestar tick (Amblyomma americanum ). However, I came across something fascinating on Tuesday after we took the samples back to the lab in order to confirm the tick counts. When I put some of the tick rolls under the microscope, I noticed that some of the larvae were shaped like the deer tick but had a slightly lighter coloration and less prominent mouth pieces (palpi). I called over one of my supervisors, Moses, for assistance. He determined that the tick was of the genus Ixodes , but it was definitely not a deer tick. The microscope I wa...
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Yuliia Skrypniuk - Week 10 with DNREC Fish and Wildlife Division

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     I can’t believe it’s already the final week of my internship! This week was full of fieldwork, learning, and some exciting last activities with both the tick and mosquito teams.      At the start of the week, I joined the tick team to visit three parks in northern Delaware for flag dragging. While tick numbers were low, we still managed to collect some Ixodes scapularis larvae (commonly known as deer ticks), which are important to track because they can carry Lyme disease.      On Tuesday, I joined the mosquito team for a boat trip out to the salt marshes. We checked water levels, monitored for mosquito larvae, and looked for adult mosquitoes to make sure everything was within acceptable levels. After lunch, we visited two more parks to collect ticks and monitor tick activity there as well.      Wednesday was all about mosquito trap collection. I spent the day with one of the seasonal workers, driving to different trap loc...
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Week 10 at GCHD

 Week 10: A Fun (and Busy) End This was my last week at the Health Department, which was naturally a bit bittersweet. Though I’m eager to get home to spend time with my family and friends, I’ve had a great time working for the office and learning about vector-borne diseases. Thankfully, this week was decently busy, so I got to spend time helping out in a lot of ways to get through this final stretch.              I started off the week mostly doing fieldwork, as it had rained at the end of the week last week and I suspected I may be able to find some larger tick counts. Since it’s now August, tick counts were still pretty low, but I managed to find a bunch of larvae throughout the county, and the occasional nymph still looking for a blood meal. Oddly enough, when I was at one of our more forested locations, I managed to find an adult female  H. longicornis  tick, which was the first time I had found one myse...
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Week 9 at GCHD

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 Week 9: A Week at the County Fair In order to ensure engagement with a greater amount of the county’s population, Melinda had me spend my evenings this week at the county’s annual agricultural fair, an event that brings out many faces that weren’t necessarily at the birthday bash. I spent several evenings at the fair nearby other local organizations, and shared some of our resources for tick prevention, removal, awareness, etc.  I met a ton of friendly faces that appreciated the information, and several kids that had fun with a tick-themed game I had at the booth. When things weren't busy, I ended up crocheting a female Ixodes and Dermacentor tick to pass the time. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a heat wave coming through during that week, and the barn my booth was in was not air-conditioned. Though the weather was a bit unpleasant, I enjoyed my time conversing with the locals in the area and their experiences with ticks.  As a result of me spending my evenings workin...
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Week 8 at GCHD

 Week 8 at GCHD Things are starting to wind down as my last few weeks are upon me. I mostly completed field work, trying to take advantage of the pleasant weather and completing tick drags throughout the county. Tick populations are still dwindling, though I have noticed an upward trend in the amount of  Ixodes  larvae at many of the locations I’ve been to. I also managed to find one  Dermacentor  adult female (who was looking a little worse for wear), which was unexpected considering how late in the year it was for adults. In the office, I continued compiling our budget report and found some things for us to order for future events. I came across some customizable keychains that had both a flashlight and a magnifying glass on them, and Melinda and I thought it would be a good idea to include those with our tweezers and infographics. I also ended up creating a poster about our research efforts and results that summarizes the data we’ve collected so far.  We...
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Week 7 at GCHD

 Week 7: The Deep Creek Birthday Bash This week was the week of the “Deep Creek Birthday Bash,” and so much of the week was spent in preparation for that. Outside of my regular field work, which I do 3-4 days a week, I spent time in the office gathering and organizing supplies we might need. We decided on a number of materials, including fine-tipped tweezers, our tick-prevention rack card, images of ticks and some of our data, and some of the samples of ticks we use for public events such as this.  In addition to preparations for the fair, I also started on compiling and updating our current budget for tick collection and educational supplies. A lot of our funding comes through an annual grant from the CDC, so Melinda has to prepare a detailed budget for all the things she uses throughout the year. I started researching some materials that may be useful for educational purposes, looking at a number of possible supplies and goodies she can use when presenting at schools and pub...
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