You may be forgiven for not thinking about tick season in Ottawa, given the weather we’ve been having, but one city councillor says reports of the little bloodsuckers are already coming in.

Kanata North councillor Marianne Wilkinson tells Newstalk 580 CFRA’s Ottawa Now with Evan Solomon the number of tick reports in Ottawa has been on the rise.

“These ticks are found everywhere in the city, but we’ve had a couple of people notify us,” she says. “We have a lot of natural environment lands here, and they tend to be in the tall grass, but you’ll find them anywhere in the city. They’ve been increasing in recent years.”

Not only is the number of ticks being sent to Ottawa Public Health for testing going up, but researchers last year found many more are testing positive for lyme disease.

Wilkinson says Ottawa Public Health offers a lot of information about how to deal with ticks.