Week 2: A Week in the Field

 Week 2 at GCHD: A Week in the Field


This week was dominated by field work. I spent the majority of the time outdoors, collecting samples of ticks at a number of locations throughout the county. Meteorologists were predicting rain the week following, so I made an effort to complete a solid amount of tick drags in preparation. 

I have the goal of completing 10+ tick drags every 2 weeks, weather permitting. There are many different hiking/recreational trails throughout the area as the county is situated firmly in the Appalachian mountains, so I’m never to be short of places to go.

I did about 10 tick drags this week, which ended up being a bit tiring but rewarding. I enjoyed the time outside in the sun, and managed to collect a number of ticks, as their nymph population tends to be high this time of year. I. scapularis was the dominant tick population at all of the sites I sampled that week. Most of the trails we collected ticks from were forested areas with short vegetation. I noticed that not all of the trails were well maintained, and it seemed to have an impact on the size of the tick population nearby.

In addition to completing the drags by myself, I also trained another new intern at doing tick drags. He is an intern through the department I work in, not the NEVBD program, so his work varies much more than my own. He is responsible for a lot of water testing and other field work, but having him trained to be able to do drags is also a useful skill. We did a total of 4 drags together this week, giving him time to be well acquainted with the field work. He caught on pretty quickly and was good company to have on some of the hikes (though we mostly worked in silence due to the heat). Overall, I had a busy week that enabled me to get a lot more hands on experience with tick collection.


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