You are playing soccer with your kids in the back yard when the ball bounces into the woods.
Do you freak out about getting ticks on you when you go to get the ball? There is good reason to be concerned from what researchers have found. The area between the lawn and the interior woods is one of the most likely places to find ticks.
That area can be broken into several zones in terms of preferred tick habitat.
Why do deer ticks prefer these parts of the edge area between lawn and interior woods?
- The micro-climate is just right for them. The higher humidity helps them survive.
- Deer, which carry ticks, frequent this area and so ticks on them drop off and hang out.
Stone walls where rodents hang out are another place to find ticks. Like deer, rodents also host ticks.
The good news is that means there are less likely places to find ticks. Like your lawn or the interior woods. Wood piles, and the dense undergrowth right at the lawn edge are less likely to have ticks in them.
I used to think walking through an unmowed field was definite tick country and would cringe when I had to do that. This study indicated that is not good tick habitat. There is not enough humidity to allow them to survive there. It also doesn’t provide them a way to move upward like brush which they desire to pursue a host.
Here is another consideration. My experience, as well as others, is that ticks seem less active in the middle of the summer verses the spring and fall.
Just because you stay away from preferred tick habitat doesn’t mean you won’t find them crawling on you when moving through less preferred areas. But you are less likely to encounter them. Taking precautions to keep ticks from getting on your skin is always wise.
Here is the article where I got my information for this blog.
