I got lymes disease from a tic. In my South london garden. Assume it was the foxes No deer for miles. Fortunately, a locum who was familiar recognised it on my white never seen the light of day leg. Much more difficult to spot in dark skin.
The absence of ticks (and also mosquitos) is something I really like about the UK. In my 7 years here, I've had one. No ticks in our garden when we lived in the North East and no ticks here in north Wales. We had many of them in all our Czech gardens and I used to be a girl scout, very often outside, so I've got possibly hundreds of them over the years. I had lyme disease as a small kid.
The absence of ticks (and also mosquitos) is something I really like about the UK.
....Maybe true by comparison to some countries, but we have rising numbers of both. Most of the year now, my garden is full of mozzies. If I leave the door open from March to November, mozzies fly right in. I don't live by a lake. My whole life in London I have plagued by mozzies.
Warming temps invites in a lot of different species, carrying some different disease variations.
The comparison in my head is always Eastern Canada where the air can go dark with biting bugs, like clouds covering the sun. The same with comparisons for temps and snow fall. So yes, in many ways the UK gets off pretty lightly.
As a kid we had our summer holidays in Dumfries and Galloway one year. There took 30 years to go back to Scotland the experience was so bad.
Rain so heavy our quality frame tent leaked. It's coped with the French Atlantic coast flash flood types of rain but consistent heavy rain for the almost the whole week was the problem in Dumfries and Galloway? Then when it wasn't raining (hard) the midgies were thick as a cloud.
I wild camped on the side of a Lakeland fell on a Lakeland tour over two weeks. I looked out the mesh door of my tent because it looked dark. I couldn't see out. I reached for my stick of Autan repellant and wrote my initials in the mesh by repelling the midgies where the stick went. Needless to say I didn't go out until dark and the breeze had picked up. The night before we bad too and cooking my dinner I got bitten badly. The next day on a hilltop I stopped counting bites at 42, on the calf of one leg!! Didn't get to the thigh, second leg, arms, neck or head.
Another wild camp near bridge of orchy was midge free one day and overnight. We all woke up to the buzzing of midgies in a large mass of them. We could see the sun shining through our tent and the black patches where it was thick with midgies. We all packed our bags inside the tents and covered ourselves with anything we had. Then braved the cloud outside. All three tents got packed into the car and is too in minutes. We didn't bother to pack them just scrunched and loaded into the car. Then sped off. We had all windows open because we had to create a draft or the midgies trapped in the tent flysheets would get to us. We stopped in a layby on a hill with a good breeze. Opened all doors and boot. Then shook out the midgies, brushing was many out of the car that we could to be blown away.
I've always been midge fodder but never ticks despite mates getting loads while I got none. I was convinced you were either midge food or tick food but rarely both. Think my views are different now. Rather be midge food than tick food though. The ticks I had really tried hard to hold on, really pulled at my skin while my partner pulled them off.
Really wish I hadn’t read this thread, can’t stop scratching!only had one tick, last year, on part of leg definitely not exposed to daylight. Only the size of a speck of mud, but I got suspicious when it wouldn’t rub off. We have a set of tick removers for when sons dog stays, and managed to remove it with that. Now I wear boots in the garden, or tuck trousers into socks and check after I come in. We do get lots of wildlife in the garden, squirrels, foxes, badgers and deer. I’m a bit worried that No Mow May may have provided shelter for loads of ticks.
I think I saw it on FB - someone had wrapped duck tape or similar, sticky side out, around their ankles before going out with the dog in long grass. Ticks galore were stuck onto the sticky tape.
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We had many of them in all our Czech gardens and I used to be a girl scout, very often outside, so I've got possibly hundreds of them over the years. I had lyme disease as a small kid.
....Maybe true by comparison to some countries, but we have rising numbers of both. Most of the year now, my garden is full of mozzies. If I leave the door open from March to November, mozzies fly right in. I don't live by a lake. My whole life in London I have plagued by mozzies.
Warming temps invites in a lot of different species, carrying some different disease variations.
The comparison in my head is always Eastern Canada where the air can go dark with biting bugs, like clouds covering the sun. The same with comparisons for temps and snow fall. So yes, in many ways the UK gets off pretty lightly.
As a kid we had our summer holidays in Dumfries and Galloway one year. There took 30 years to go back to Scotland the experience was so bad.
Rain so heavy our quality frame tent leaked. It's coped with the French Atlantic coast flash flood types of rain but consistent heavy rain for the almost the whole week was the problem in Dumfries and Galloway? Then when it wasn't raining (hard) the midgies were thick as a cloud.
I wild camped on the side of a Lakeland fell on a Lakeland tour over two weeks. I looked out the mesh door of my tent because it looked dark. I couldn't see out. I reached for my stick of Autan repellant and wrote my initials in the mesh by repelling the midgies where the stick went. Needless to say I didn't go out until dark and the breeze had picked up. The night before we bad too and cooking my dinner I got bitten badly. The next day on a hilltop I stopped counting bites at 42, on the calf of one leg!! Didn't get to the thigh, second leg, arms, neck or head.
Another wild camp near bridge of orchy was midge free one day and overnight. We all woke up to the buzzing of midgies in a large mass of them. We could see the sun shining through our tent and the black patches where it was thick with midgies. We all packed our bags inside the tents and covered ourselves with anything we had. Then braved the cloud outside. All three tents got packed into the car and is too in minutes. We didn't bother to pack them just scrunched and loaded into the car. Then sped off. We had all windows open because we had to create a draft or the midgies trapped in the tent flysheets would get to us. We stopped in a layby on a hill with a good breeze. Opened all doors and boot. Then shook out the midgies, brushing was many out of the car that we could to be blown away.
I've always been midge fodder but never ticks despite mates getting loads while I got none. I was convinced you were either midge food or tick food but rarely both. Think my views are different now. Rather be midge food than tick food though. The ticks I had really tried hard to hold on, really pulled at my skin while my partner pulled them off.
Now I wear boots in the garden, or tuck trousers into socks and check after I come in. We do get lots of wildlife in the garden, squirrels, foxes, badgers and deer. I’m a bit worried that No Mow May may have provided shelter for loads of ticks.