Spring brings forth birds, flowers, leaves and fiddleheads, but don’t overlook ticks. They’re back, too, and looking for blood.

This time of year, it’s the apple-seed-sized adult deer ticks or larger dog ticks that are being found on pets, children and people.

The inconspicuous, size-of-a-pinhead deer tick nymphs won’t be seen until the end of May or early June, said Chuck Lubelczyk, a field biologist with the Maine Medical Center’s Lyme Disease Lab in Portland.

Both stages – adult and nymph – of the two-year deer tick life cycle can carry the bacteria called spirochetes, which causes Lyme Disease illness in humans and animals. But not all deer ticks carry the bacteria, which is most likely to cause infections in people or pets between the months of June and September.

Finding ticks

Of Maine’s 13 species of ticks, the deer tick is the only one that carries the Lyme disease pathogen.

The trick to preventing infection from a deer tick bite is to do daily tick checks.

“A tick has to be feeding for 36 hours to transport the bacteria. So that’s the critical thing – get the ticks off before 36 hours is up,” Lubelczyk added.

He recommended that people returning home after walking in the woods or a field should first put their clothes in the dryer – not the washing machine – and use the high heat cycle setting to kill any unseen tick hitchhikers.

Then wash the clothes in the washing machine.

More than 500 cases of Maine-acquired Lyme disease have now been officially recognized.

Adult deer ticks are found most often in the late fall while they search for larger hosts, such as deer. If they don’t find a host, these unsuccessful ticks can spend the winter under the leaf litter of deciduous trees like oak and maple, or in dense shrub layers, then reappear in early spring or during periods of mild winter weather.

“Ticks can be out all year if conditions are right. On those warm days in January, it’s not uncommon to get our first ticks,” Lubelczyk said.

Tracking ticks

Adult American dog ticks – Maine’s most common tick – can be found from May through July. They are larger than the deer tick. Also, a dog tick can be distinguished by faint whitish lines or dots on their backs, Lubelczyk added.

“Generally, deer ticks are associated with forests and woods, and dog ticks are associated with fields and pastures. From Sebago to Bridgton, that’s a very good dog tick area,” Lubelczyk said.

Deer ticks are well entrenched along the coast, particularly in York, Cumberland and Knox counties.

“We’re getting more now that are going up into Kennebec and Penobscot County, following the river valleys and the mid coast, but in Oxford County we’re getting deer ticks from as far up as Fryeburg now, so the potential is there for Lyme disease,” he added.

In Franklin and Somerset counties, the numbers drop off.

“But each year, more and more towns across Maine are sending ticks in to us,” Lubelczyk said.

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