Tick Blitz

Getting a tick is not high on any ones list. 

There are over 850 tick species in the world, of which 100 are capable of carrying a disease such as Lymes disease or Tick Bite Fever. Ticks are not born with a disease, they pick it up from their hosts.  They are quite clever really, in their adult form ticks will climb up vegetation and use their forelegs to feel/grab for a host, using carbon dioxide, scent, body heat and other stimuli to find the host. Ticks are usually found from ground level to three feet above the ground. 

These past few days I have been walking in the North Wessex Downs assessing Silver Duke of Edinburgh groups and I didn't really appreciate how rife the ticks were in the area.  I spent a good while removing ticks with carefully selected tweezers.  I found these ticks much harder to remove than the ones in Africa, these ones were much smaller and once they had really buried their heads into the girls flesh they proved to be difficult to remove. Ticks have not got good biting mouth parts so have to bury their mouth and head into their host in order to get to the blood vessels.  Charming creatures.

African ticks also come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but seem to be easier to remove. I remember advising a group of girls that walking through the bush in a strappy top was not a good idea, the bush was over head height and they were off the beaten track walking transects across a game reserve.  But they wanted a tan and it was too hot.....  They only needed to to be advised once; that night I spent many an hour meticulously picking ticks off from around a number of bra strap lines!  Once you get the hang of the method - twist and pull, it can be quite therapeutic.

Ticks can be avoided with insect repellent but the best thing to do is to wear long trousers and a long sleeved shirt - also helps with preventing sunburn when in Africa, and the UK (at the moment)!