Some of my earliest nature memories involve hedgehogs. When I was very young and went to stay with my grandparents they had 4 or 5 hedgehogs that used to visit them each evening. My gran would feed them dishes of cat food on the patio next to the house and together we’d watch their visit before I had my own supper (a treat only allowed at Granny’s house)! And headed off to bed.
Then when I was a little bit older a mother hedgehog nested in the ramshackle garage next to our house. Until the hedgehog family left the garage was off limits, but I was allowed the briefest of glimpses to see mum and her babies before they left.
In the intervening years, I’ve seen few, if any live hedgehogs. Sadly, most of them that I have seen have been victims of the road. That is until I was driving home from a friend’s house late one night last year and I saw a small dark shape step off the curb and into the road. I came to an emergency stop on the deserted road and the shape looked up at the car. Hedgehog! I looked at it while it sized up the car and eventually decided it was safe to proceed across the road safely, where it disappeared into the night.
This was only a couple of roads away from me, so now I knew that hedgehogs were in the area I went round the garden and was able to create gaps in between fence panels on two sides of the garden, to create a hedgehog highway in and out.
I didn’t have that long to wait. One dark Autumn evening my husband suddenly yelled “HEDGEHOG”! And sure enough, one was snuffling around the garden. We saw it again on a couple more occasions before it disappeared, we hoped into hibernation as winter took hold.
It seems that ‘our’ hedgehog may have chosen our garden as it’s hibernation site as just after dawn broke on Sunday morning I heard the alarm call again – “HEDGEHOG”!!! There it was, snuffling around the pond and picking up fallen sunflower hearts from around the bird feeder.
We were initially quite concerned, as a hedgehog out in daylight is usually ill and needs urgent attention. But he seemed perky and bright, and after a quick query on Twitter we learned that sometimes hedgehogs wake a little early at this time of year as they are extremely hungry after winter hibernation. My husband ran out with some hedgehog food which seemed to be gratefully received, and then the hog disappeared again.
Until that evening when it reappeared just before dusk. I’d been prepared and left out food and water and these were wolfed down, adding weight to the theory that we just had a very hungry hog on our hands.
While it was about in the half light I took the opportunity to take some pictures of our visitor –
For the next couple of evenings the hedgehog returned after dark, at a much later and more hedgehog-appropriate hour. I haven’t seen it since, but have continued to put food out each evening which has disappeared by the morning. This has given me the final push to buy a trail camera to see if it returns, and I am looking forward to learning more about our garden wildlife after dark.
I am so happy to have had our hedgehog visit, and that it seemed to have found our garden an appropriate habitat in which to spend the winter. By the autumn I’ll be installing a hedgehog house to hopefully make it even more comfortable if our visitor returns, and it’ll be even better if he brings some friends with him!
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