psherpa's Identifications

A last-minute trip to the NJ pine barrens from Philadelphia. Cami, Hirdi and Mika wanted to do a few museums in Philly so I ran off to do some iNatting. I checked the internet for good natural areas near Philly and realized the pine barrens were within 30 miles. I went with a trail I found online (Mullica River Trail (yellow blaze), accessible from the parking area next to the Ranger Station at Atsion (marked as Atsion Office on Google Maps). It was described as having typical pine barrens habitat and was a lot of fun to explore. I was blitzing from around 11AM-5PM and then on the way back got stuck in the worst traffic jam I have ever been in while crossing the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. They closed it down due to police activity and it ended up taking me an extra hour and a half to reroute to the Whitman bridge.

Here are my other observations from the pine barrens on August 5th:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?nelat=39.800226121686364&nelng=-74.5941806557696&on=2023-08-05&order=asc&order_by=observed_on&place_id=any&swlat=39.587035776567376&swlng=-74.80335004432804&user_id=joemdo

One of these pictures is the tick on its back. The smaller one is one of around 15 others we encountered on this hike and is presumed to be same species. See our other two posts in this area if you are good at tick ID.