Hedgehogs

Pretty much just a message for Pentax Users in Essex, but obviously if you have a thing for hedgehogs it might appeal.

Today we collected two hedgehogs from the South Essex Wildlife Hospital, and these have been released in our garden. Prior to release we needed to ensure they had a nice, waterproof home (a chamber at the bottom of our logpile) and a way out of the garden so that they can roam about and get their food. They may just wander off and never be seen again, but hopefully they'll stick around.

Hedgehogs are in trouble due to loss of habitat, poisoning from slug pellets, getting run over etc. The South Essex Wildlife Hospital currently have around 200 needing rehoming. If your garden and surrounding area is suitable, they'll be only too grateful of your help to provide a release site - give Sue there a call! If you want to donate to this charity too, please do, they do an amazing job. If you can give them some of your time, even better!

This is the male, before we got him out of the box and ushered him into his new home.




Hopefully we'll have success with these two, and some of you will provide some others with places to go.

Dan

We live in a town, but quite often get hedgehogs in the garden. I have read somewhere that they can travel incredible distances in one night, maybe up to 7 miles?

Good on you Dan.

I like to see people doing things for wildlife. Do foxes bother hedgehogs ? We have a few foxes that share our space?

Nope. Too prickly.

B

It all depends on whether you have a night bus in your area. Our buses stop running at 7pm, so the hedgehogs will only go as far as their little legs will carry them.

Dan

(Actually, the lady at the wildlife hospital said that they need a square kilometre to roam around in to find their food.)

Found one in my left over pizza box when out camping at the weekend. He ran off at an incredible pace so I bet they can travel very far in a night. Maybe we could start hedgehog racing!

Here's one I took in the garden two years ago in my pre-digital days with my P30n.




Have not seen any this year yet - could do with one or two to get rid of the slugs

Howard