Week 4

 Last week I finished up my 4th week of my internship with the Virginia Department of Health. I did two trips last week one on Wednesday and other on Thursday. My Wednesday trip was back down to Boydton, Virginia to hit two sites for tick dragging. First site was Eagle Point Wildlife Management Area and collected a good amount of ticks, 26 in total but all lonestar ticks and they were almost all nymphs. Second site was Greenwood Wildlife Management Area and collected almost no ticks oddly, both on the trail and deep in the woods off trail. My Thursday trip was to Cumberland Marsh Natural Area Preserve in New Kent, Va, beautiful area but the black flies and horseflies were abysmal basically hundreds of them nonstop swarming and attacking me on my walk over to the trail werevi was going to look for ticks. I collected 120 ticks on just the trail alone, almost entirely lonestar ticks of every life stage, only other species I got were blacklegged ticks but only collected 4, finding 120 ticks on 800m of trail made my skin crawl. Interestingly I collected no ticks off trail, they were only grabbing the drag on trail in shaded areas. It was a very hot day so the deviation between no ticks found in sun exposed trail to all the ticks found in shaded areas was exaggerated. I think it is good to note though, with no formal training in tick behavior I quickly learned the perfect conditions to find ticks shaded dry trails preferably with shedded pine needles. This is helpful in learning how to avoid them when im doing my favorite outdoor activities like trail running.



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