| Christine | Farmer |

Last summer (2008) I was very surprised to see a young hedgehog quite happily bumbling around my garden in broad daylight. I was so surprised the first time it happened I didn’t even have time to reach for my camera, but the second time I managed to take a video of him eating some cat food, which I’ll try to post very soon! I saw him once or twice over that summer, and this prompted the purchase of a hedgehog house from the local garden centre (click on pics for larger image):

The instructions said to place some leaves inside the house, but to put plenty of leaves outside, as hedgehogs like to take them inside and arrange things for themselves! The wood didn’t appear to offer much protection against the rain, and so after positioning it, I added some roof slates and bricks. As far as I know the hedgehog spent last winter in this house, but as the branches grew down and it became quite inaccessible to me, I could only judge by the beaten-down appearance of the ground in front of the house, glimpsed by the light of a torch.

Over this past summer I caught sight of the hedgehog a few times; once memorably at dawn when I was again startled by the little fellow rushing out of the gloom and straight towards me. In recent weeks, as the nights have started to draw in, I have again seen him more often, and bought some hedgehog food which he seemed to eat once or twice. But then I started to see him now and then eating the dried cat food that I had left for Tigs, and it became a habit for me to leave him out a little bowl of food near the back door. As a result, he began to make nightly visits and I was able to take these pictures through the cat-flap:

He doesn’t seem to mind the flash, but I try not to take too many in case he gets upset.

Just about a week ago now I noticed that whatever time I was up and about in the middle of the night he would either be eating, or napping in a pile of leaves under the fence not far from the back door. I couldn’t believe my eyes at first, but yes, there he was all snuggled up and having a bit of a rest before coming back for a bit of a wander round the bowls of food and water, and the occasional scratch. In fact it became almost guaranteed that I would see him up to something any time I looked out of the window. He now enjoys a slightly more varied diet of dried hedgehog food, dried cat food, peanuts, sunflower seeds (which he’s not keen on) and his favourite: raisins.

One night last week I sneaked outside while he was napping and managed to get this shot of him, in which you can see him amongst the leaves, with the little shelter of slate I had put up in case he got dripped on:

This past weekend I decided to put up a proper little house for him there, as he seemed to love the spot, and so I bought a slightly different model of house which is igloo-shaped, and of a kind of brushwood on a frame. It seemed to me that this would be cosier for him than the wooden house type. However, the construction is only meant to be a shelter I think, and it advises covering. So as you can see from the pictures below I placed the structure on a little pallet, then surrounded it with bricks and covered it with roofing felt, packing the space between with plenty of straw. I then put a few handfuls of dry leaves inside, and left piles outside for him to take in himself. Then I waited and hoped that he wasn’t too disgusted at what I’d done to his little napping shelter!

Before I went to bed that night I saw him furtling around in the area of the new house, but it wasn’t til the next morning, around half past six, that he was seen taking some leaves into his new home. As usual he was bustling really fast, and it was amazing to see him carrying the leaves in his mouth and rushing inside his igloo! Since then I’ve put several more fresh piles of dry leaves outside, and he’s taken lots inside, so I think he is probably going to make this his winter retreat. I will make sure he’s nice and cosy by adding some fleece to the top once I can get hold of some.

I’ve been trying to get a picture of him carrying leaves, but it’s terribly difficult without disturbing him, even though he’s only about six feet from my back door! I have to poke my little camera through the cat flap, which isn’t the best position to photograph anything. These are the best one’s I’ve managed to date, taken last night while he was carrying leaves into the nest, although admittedly he could be doing anything from the photos (click on them for a slightly better image):

I’ll try to get some better pictures if I can. In the meantime here are some links to places you can find out more information on saving hedgehogs, and buy hedgehog houses:

British Hedgehog Preservation Society including page on making hedgehog houses and lots of other information.

Wiggly Wigglers hedgehog house, although many garden centres have plenty of wildlife habitats for sale, which is where we bought ours.

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