Overnight lows were -35 C

 With the wind chill, it felt like -45 C. If you are from the States and don't know Celsius, -35 C is 30 below F. You probably already know that -40 C and -40 F are the same.

This was actually good news. Those kinds of temperatures, coupled with only a tiny bit of snow on the ground, stand a chance of killing lots of ticks.

The tick population has exploded in recent years. Until about 15 years ago there were no ticks at all in Nolalu. Now you get ticks on you just about any time you walk through tall grass from mid-May to mid-July. 

There are also new species of ticks showing up. The first were Wood ticks which are relatively harmless.

Now Black-legged ticks that carry Lyme disease are being found everywhere in the Thunder Bay vicinity. Nolalu is just 50 kilometers from Thunder Bay. 

These new ticks are active much later in the season too. An entomologist in Thunder Bay gathered a bunch of the ticks in September and tested them for Lyme disease. Two-thirds of them tested positive.

And still another tick is showing up. A friend of mine was cleaning a grouse in Graham, which is about 150 kilometers west of Thunder Bay last September when a tick walked off the grouse onto his hand. This arachnid (ticks are members of the spider family) had a white spot in its center. Don had never seen anything like it but looked it up later and it was the Lone Star tick which carries yet other diseases to humans.

Don reported it to the health authorities and learned several others had also seen Lone Star ticks. Unfortunately, nobody thought to save the ticks so they could be verified and tested by the health unit.

The fact that the Lone Star tick was on the grouse shows how ticks can be transported into new areas like Northwestern Ontario. Grouse are not migratory, of course, but most other birds are and could be providing pipelines for ticks to what were once tick-free zones.

That scenario has always been the case but in the past the ticks couldn't survive the harsh winter conditions we experienced. Now, with climate change, they can live here quite easily. The cold of the last few days was really the only bitter temps we've had in a few years.

Quiz of the day: what's this?

 

Larry the Lynx comes to dinner

 

I looked down the driveway the other day and here came Larry the Lynx strolling along, just a cool cat strutting his stuff. When he got to the top of the little hill near the house he did what all of our dogs have always done -- flipped over on his back and scooched back and forth while he slid downhill. Then he walked up and did it again.

Finally he continued walking up the drive and that's when the ground around the bird feeder came into view.

"Holy spruce cones! Look at all the squirrels!" he must have thought for at first he froze, then crouched down and started his stalk. Every time all eight squirrels were out of sight over the snowbank, he moved forward, sometimes rapidly, sometimes creeping.

He was still 30 feet away when I saw him take six quick steps and then crouch down again. It took awhile for me to realize he had caught one of the squirrels already. It must have come right to him.

It took him about 30 minutes to eat his catch, all the while the other squirrels continued foraging for sunflower seeds, not realizing one of their own was missing.

Finally, Larry stood up and the squirrels scattered. He moved to the edge of the bush, then lay down and groomed himself for a long while. By that time the squirrels seemed to have forgotten about him and went back to looking for seeds. Larry noticed and headed back to the bird feeder.

But the squirrels saw him coming and scrambled up the trees.

Larry just parked himself at the edge of the snowbank, facing the trees.

"The nice thing about squirrels, besides their nutty taste, is they have no short-term memory," thought Larry as he waited for another squirrel to stumble into view.

As he lay there bathed in the noon winter sunlight, and having just finished a full meal, he stretched out on his side and fell asleep. When he awoke 30 minutes later, the squirrels were chattering at him from all the trees. 

"We see you, Larry! We totally see you!"

Larry stood up and walked deliberately down the middle of the yard, then around the house to another nice sunny spot out of sight of the squirrels and finished his nap.

When he awoke the squirrels were all back on the ground looking for fallen seeds around the feeder.

Larry stretched and then crept around the house again.

"No short-term memory at all," he thought and smiled to himself.