Just one more note on chiggers. While you are in the chigger's
habitat (grasslands in the U.S.) do not set you binoculars on the ground.
While I was studying nesting birds on the tallgrass prairie of Kansas, I
would often set my binoculars down on the ground so I would not knock the
nest over or smack the nestlings with the binoculars. The chiggers would
get on the neck strap of the binoculars then move to my neck. I spent two
summers with a red, itchy neck (to add to the red itchy bra area, waistband,
and ankles. When I went home from the field, my house was full of fleas (no
air conditioning) so I was one large bug bite from head to toe. I never
found any way to keep the chiggers off of me.
As far as chiggers in Washington, I don't think they occur in the
Pacific Northwest. I have never run into them in eastern Washington
(including Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge which has some grasslands and
is notorious for ticks) or in many years in Idaho. The only time I found
chiggers were in Kansas but I understand that they are common in the Midwest.
They have to be one of the nastiest of pests.
Deb Beutler
Department of Zoology
Washington State Univerisity
Pullman, Whitman Co., WA
dbeutler at wsunix.wsu.edu