Hitchhikers:

[Bruce Bruner]

This view was outside my kitchen window the other day. I think the Magpie's were hungry. Ticks? ...Yummy!

[charlie cleveland]

thats a rare site for sure... charlie

[Dean Romig]

Nice picture Bruce.

Before the woods were razed and the land bulldozed away last year we would see lots of deer right out the kitchen window.... Not anymore though. They call it "progress" - I call it rape.




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[Gary Carmichael Sr]

Dean, That's what I like about living where I do, my land joins the National Park lands, and do not have to worry to much about that sort of thing! I was lucky and was able to get deeded access to my property thru the Park Land, sort of grandfathered I guess.

[David Hamilton]

The deer ticks have takn over here in Northern Virginia. My wife got Babezocia from a tick bite this last summer and diagnonis was difficult as no one here had seen it before. It is like maleria and is treated the same way. Love the wild life, often in my sights, but we need more hunters here. David

[Dean Romig]

David, we have deer ticks here so thick they keep some hunters out of the woods. A friend who bowhunts has come out of the woods after a morning's hunt with literally more than 80 ticks on his clothing and body. We finally have medical professionals here who know what to look for in diagnosing Lyme Disease. It wasn't so long ago that people would suffer from the devastating effects of Lyme for years before they were properly diagnosed. But it isn't just the deer that are the carriers of these ticks.... mice, birds, squirrels, skunks, raccoons, just about any warm-blooded critter that inhabits the same areas where there are ticks.

That little 12 acre piece of woods where those ten deer are in my picture was so overrun with deer ticks that I would not allow my grandkids in there and that picture is taken from my kitchen window.

[Peter Clark]

David, we have deer ticks here so thick they keep some hunters out of the woods. A friend who bowhunts has come out of the woods after a morning's hunt with literally more than 80 ticks on his clothing and body. We finally have medical professionals here who know what to look for in diagnosing Lyme Disease. It wasn't so long ago that people would suffer from the devastating effects of Lyme for years before they were properly diagnosed. But it isn't just the deer that are the carriers of these ticks.... mice, birds, squirrels, skunks, raccoons, just about any warm-blooded critter that inhabits the same areas where there are ticks.

That little 12 acre piece of woods where those ten deer are in my picture was so overrun with deer ticks that I would not allow my grandkids in there and that picture is taken from my kitchen window.

I picked it up when working in Washington and living on a farm in Loudon Co. VA and it took 3 years before it was diagnosed and treated. When I left
for Colorado I was having these wierd neck and shoulder pains every fall and finally a young doctor treated me for it and no more problem. He couldn't believe I hadn't been treated before. I had had the tests twice before and finally on the third one, there was some question so he treated me. He felt they should have just treated me based on what I told them. I even remembered the tick that was behind my ear.

[Destry L. Hoffard]

That's a great picture Bruce. I actually saw a pair of magpies in Southern Illinois two winters ago. They're so rare in that are that I reported the sighting to the Natural History Survey.

Destry

[Tom Will]

Cool picture of the magpies. My brother in law and I were hunting in PA on the Somerset county and Bedford county lines for grouse. We got a few grouse but around 100 ticks and my pointer was covered with them. That's how I first noticed them. Thankfully none were embedded. We stripped at the car to check. I missed a tiny one on the dog but she's on revolution and has had the lyme vaccine. I won't hunt there anymore until after some hard freezes and only when it's cold. Seemed like I felt them on me for days, I was always checking.