Tick-proof your garden: Attract birds to fend off parasites

Summer is the time for intensive garden work and… increased tick activity. To protect yourself from these arachnids, place one thing in your garden. It will attract ticks' natural enemies, and you can forget about bites.

Ticks are tiny arachnids that feed on the blood of mammals and birds. Their bite is not painful, but it poses a severe health threat. Ticks carry diseases such as Lyme disease and encephalitis.

You may encounter them in meadows, parks, or forests, but arachnids are increasingly appearing in home gardens. How can you protect yourself from ticks in the garden? Place an item in it that will attract their natural enemies.

Ticks are tiny creatures from the arachnid family. There are about 900 species of these pests worldwide. They range from 0.5 millimetres to 25 millimetres. Their presence on the body is almost undetectable, just like their bite. Only after a few hours does a painful and itchy redness appear at the bite site.

Every year, there are more and more cases of diseases transmitted by ticks. These include, for example, Lyme disease, tick-borne encephalitis, or babesiosis. Each of these diseases requires specialist treatment.

Arachnids can attack us anywhere. Once, you could only encounter them while walking in meadows and forests. Now, ticks are even present in cities. People working in gardens are particularly vulnerable to attacks. How can you protect yourself?

You can find many tick-repellent sprays in stores and pharmacies, but not everyone remembers to use them before leaving the house. There is another way to protect yourself from tick attacks in the garden.

Place a bird feeder or birdhouse in it. Species such as sparrows, thrushes, and chickadees feed on ticks. This will help the birds and get rid of ticks.

Ticks have a very keen sense of smell. They can detect the scent of their prey from afar. Some scents attract them, while others repel them. Suppose you want to eliminate them from your garden and plant plants such as rosemary, lavender, basil, thyme, or mint. Ticks cannot stand the smells of these plants and will flee as soon as they sense them.