This week started out with a long driving day! Some volunteers had their tick collection kits shipped to them, but the rest opted to pick them up at their local Cornell Cooperative Extension office, so most kits needed to be driven to the CCE offices. Emily and I loaded the car with tick kits for eight counties in the Hudson Vally and capital district, and left Ithaca Monday morning to drop them off. Thirteen hours later we were back in Ithaca, and everything was ready to go for the Tick Blitz next week.
During the rest of the week, I learned about identifying genera and species of mosquitos from Jake, whose job it was to sort through and document over 3,000 mosquitoes that had come back from Rockaway Park in New York City. I also emailed all the Tick Blitz volunteers to make sure they knew where they were going to be tick dragging, and drawing routes on Google Maps for those who needed suggestions where to go.