Fleas, Ticks, Mites & Parasites!

It's that time of year I'm afraid but don't be put off, nothing ghastly to see here.

This is something I see quite often, and it's not just blackbirds that do this, feral pigeons usually do it on flat roofs with one or two of the group keeping watch for predators. I've never seen sparrows at it but they regularly take a dust bath which probably does the trick. Green woodpeckers look to be in agony when they employ Wood ants to do the work but the ghastliest case (apologies but as promised, no pictures) that I've ever encountered, was the brown legged, green bodied crab like things that ran up my arm when I picked up a Swift that was on the pavement in town argh!

There is however a mite, of the Arachnid family, that I'm rather fond of. It's called Trombidium breei

and it lives part of it's life, in some instances, on butterflies. In particular on the legs of Marbled whites. These butterflies are ordinarily only flying in July and where I live, they are way up on the Downs so it's hard work finding the mites, especially as the best way is to hike up and down every day to check the butterflies while they are asleep in daylight at dawn and dusk.

I haven't yet been able to find out enough about these creatures to satisfy my curiosity so up and down I go. I have already discovered something that appears to have gone unnoticed by enthusiasts and fingers crossed my other theory might be correct and I can then add something rather important to the data base. Top Secret for now but watch this space!