2011 Hedgehogs

Thought I'd post some pics of the hedgehog family that lived under our shed... They were very tame, we fed them for several months before they all gradually moved away, leaving just mum.

 

Really lovely piccies,
thank you Dan,
Jenny

 

Lovely piccies. Thank you!

 

I've not seen any hedgehogs in our new garden, maybe it's too wild? We do have lots of thrushes though. It's nice to see their pile of snail shells near their favourite rock!

 

Aww

 

Brilliant Dan

 

The thing to remember with wild animals is that it is usually up to them whether or not you they will allow themselves to be seen. They'll know you're there well before you know they're there. Hedgehogs have a number of techniques for not being seen. Before Steven learned to trust us, and before I knew what the rustling was, I searched the garden several times with a powerful torch before spotting him. I passed the torch beam over him and looked straight at him several times before I realised what I was looking at. The only thing that made him stand out at all was his eyes reflecting the torch light, which at first I thought was just a piece of glass or other reflective rubbish on the floor. Steven had simply frozen to the spot.

On a separate incident, out mountain biking with my dad once he suddenly signalled me to stop and whispered 'look! deer!'. He was pointing straight at a tree. It took my eyes several seconds to pick out the deer which was plain as day right in the middle of my field of vision. We watched this one lone deer for a few seconds before it got bored and wandered off, as it did lots more deers appeared next to it. They'd been there all along of course, but being masters of the natural art of invisibility, they'd simply stayed out of sight until they got bored and decided to go.

All this is simply explained by the way evolution has tuned our eyes and our visual cortex for survival. I could write an essay on that one, but I wont for now.

 

Last summer, I was walking down to my greenhouse just after sunset to close the vents. As I was walking down the path I heard this strange hissing sound, looked down and I was about to step on a hedgehog!
Didn't see it in the gloom. And I was bare foot!

 

wonderful Dan, simply wonderful

 

Brilliant pics, he/she seems very trusting!

I haven't seen a hedgepig in years now, really miss seeing them at my parents house. I've built up a large pile of sticks and leaves in my current garden so hoping there's one hibernating in there.

Does anyone know when they wake up? I'm guessing it ties in with when the weather warms up? They've got plenty of slugs and snails to eat.

 

well our Hodgy hasn't made an appearance yet...im sure he was up and about this time last year though, but then the weather has been particularly bad, hasn't it? i wouldn't be surprised if he popped his head out said "sod that" and went back to bed

 

Lovely pics. We have some here at the mo droppings around by the pond. One year I did not see any but reading above they may well have been keeping out of sight. I give them some dog food as well as anything I think they might like.

 

oh Hans don't talk to me about hedgehog droppings, Freddy our little chihuahua dog had a good old roll around in one yesterday morning being such a little guy he really made that poo go a hell of a long loooong way...covered from head to toe so he was