9 October 2024
Yesterday whereas Fowl Lab was at Hays Woods, Nick Liadis captured and banded a Connecticut warbler! I used to be not there to see this uncommon chicken (alas) however Nick despatched me a photograph. Discover that the warbler has an engorged tick at high proper of his eye-ring.
Tick season has returned with a vengeance after a low interval throughout August and September’s drought. As a result of they can’t dwell with out moisture ticks hand around in humid vegetation, however there was little or no accessible throughout the drought. All that has modified with the latest rains and black-legged ticks are actually energetic for his or her mating season which they conduct on the our bodies of deer. I used to be reminded of this yesterday after I noticed a deer in Schenley Park with three engorged ticks on its face. (Ewwww!)
Birds that forage on the bottom are prone to encounter ticks so its no shock that the Connecticut warbler and this track sparrow acquired them.
(picture from Scott, & Clark, Kerry & Coble, & Ballantyne,. (2019). Detection and Transstadial Passage of Babesia Species and Borrelia burgdorferi Sensu Lato in Ticks Collected from Avian and Mammalian Hosts in Canada. Healthcare. 7. 155. 10.3390/healthcare7040155)
Birds, in actual fact, are an integral a part of the tick’s life cycle. Discover the robin within the Summer time part of the CDC diagram beneath.
I used to say that deer had been the black-legged ticks’ lengthy distance transport system however I’ve modified my thoughts. It’s birds. A 2015 research discovered that 3.56% of the songbirds migrating north into Texas within the spring are carrying tick(s), most of that are native to Central and South America.
The bird-tick transport system works each methods. A 2019 tick-host-pathogen research in Canada discovered that some birds carry ticks with pathogens on fall migration.
Poor birds! They want all of the energy they’ll get to finish their migration. It doesn’t assist when ticks are sucking their blood.
In the meantime, watch out about ticks on the market! Lyme illness, transmitted by ticks, is horrible. Test your clothes when you’re within the subject and completely test your physique for ticks once you return residence. Click on right here for tactics to forestall an infection by holding ticks off your garments and physique.
p.s. Assist Nick Liadis’ efforts with a donation at Fowl Lab’s GoFundMe website.
