Hedgehogs visiting my garden? Who knew? I certainly didn’t until one mild early autumn evening last year when my neighbour was sitting outside and heard rustling on the gravel pathway at the side of my house. And there was a hedgehog – trotting from my back garden round to the front. She showed me the photo on her phone and I was hooked.
The main reason I had never noticed them was obvious and exactly the same reason why I have never seen the Northern Lights: hedgehogs (and the Northern Lights) are nocturnal and I close my blinds when it gets dark. I began looking out after dark and saw one, and sometimes two, regularly on the lawn.
A bit of research revealed some reasons why my garden might have attracted them:
1. It is accessible from the quiet and frequently overgrown back lane, the road at the front, and a neighbour’s garden. Hedgehogs need a surprising amount of space to foray and many gardens are inaccessible with walls and fencing right down to the ground. To ensure access and create a “hedgehog highway”, I had a hole cut at the foot of my back fence. It was used the same night and seems to be the main access ever since.
2. Hedgehogs like areas which are not too tidy. Well, that’s my garden. A great excuse for leaving bits of old wood, dead leaves etc lying around.
3. For years, I have put food out for the birds, including scattering mealworms on the lawn. It turns out that hedgehogs LOVE mealworms and get quite addicted to them. So during the night they spend quite a lot of time cleaning up any the birds might have missed. However mealworms lack nutrition vital to hedgehogs (mainly calcium apparently) so I switched to a calcium-rich alternative which both birds and hedgehogs tuck into with gusto. Birds and hedgehogs also take full advantage of the water dish – an old frying pan (I did say my garden isn’t too tidy).
I looked forward to catching a glimpse of a hedgehog (occasionally two at once) when peering out into the dark. Any passers-by must have thought I was a real curtain-twitcher. Even felt a bit disappointed if I hadn’t seen one before I turned in for the night. Although sometimes saw one in the middle of the night when I went down to the kitchen for a drink of water.
I started putting out meat-based dog food, along with proper hedgehog food (crunchy kibble). This went down well with the hedgehogs. Unfortunately it also went down well with the local cat population. More of that later.
The last sighting before hibernation was towards the end of November. Perhaps the space beneath the garden shed provided a winter nest? Or maybe the hedgehog igloo I bought from my friend’s shop and hid under a shrub?
The first hedgehog of spring put in an appearance in the garden in mid-March. Spring also brought two important developments: the feeding station and the trailcam.
The feeding station (a rather grand title for a plastic storage box with a hole cut in the side and duct tape to cover any sharp edges) was my response to the feline felons. I put food dishes inside and saw hedgehogs using it straightaway that first night. So far so good.
The trailcam is really fun. Lent to me by a friend, it can record short videos or take photos (or both together). Footage and photos of hedgehogs eating (very noisily) in the feeding station or the back garden have proved very addictive. I ended up having to buy a large USB storage device for my computer as the video clips take up a lot of space. Also other wildlife in the garden– a mouse which has so far managed to evade the cats.
Something else which the trailcam in the feeding station showed was… yes, the neighbour’s slim little moggie still managing to get through the entrance hole and filch food. The war of attrition continued.
So how many hedgehogs visit the garden? I usually see one at a time, sometimes two and, on one occasion I briefly saw three. If there are two in the garden at the same time, I have seen them (1) ignoring each other; (2) fighting – a bit of a rugby scrum with a lot of pushing, shoving and head-butting – although am not sure rugby players are allowed to head-but one another in the side the way hedgehogs do; (3) indulging in ‘courtship behaviour’ – where the male circles round the female for ages presumably hoping to impress her with his persistence and get her in the mood. The one time I have seen three at once, two were shoving each other around while the third fed quietly under a shrub then wandered off to the front garden. Wonder if it was two would-be suitors fighting over a female – who, when their attention was focussed on each other, took herself off for a peaceful feed elsewhere?
So, what about the thieving cat(s)? A trip to the DIY store resulted in a 30cm length of flexible aluminium piping (the kind used for oven ventilation) pushed into the entrance hole and taped into position. Hedgehogs use it no problem, but cats don’t seem able to crawl along it. A few blurry images of a cat peering through the side of the box at the dish of tempting dog meat. Sorted. I hope.
Knowing there is this whole other world in the garden makes me look at it differently. Not just a place where I sit in during good weather and occasionally wield a hoe , but somewhere which also belongs to a whole range of other creatures living their lives at all times of the day and night. Who knows how long hedgehogs (and mice) have been going about their business here? Will my recently planted wildflower meadow seeds make a difference?
Hedgehog numbers have declined so much in recent years that they have been placed on a ‘red list’ of species at risk of extinction. Numbers have particularly crashed in the countryside, probably due to loss of habitat (ie hedges!). Gardens and other ‘suburban’ areas are more important than ever. For more info, check out Hedgehog Street – https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/ Hedgehog Street also has a Youtube channel where folks post entertaining videos of nocturnal hedgehog activity in their gardens. Always makes me smile.
…………….. still haven’t seen the Northern Lights though.