Almost two years ago, I posted a blog about building a hedgehog house for the garden. It’s a really worthwhile thing to do, and British hedgehogs need our help!
For the first year, we didn’t really see any sign of use, which was a great shame. But for the last year, we have seen little patches of digging which look like hedgehog activity, and more crucially, the odd hedgehog poo in the garden.
But in the last couple of weeks, we’ve finally discovered that our garden is now very popular with hedgehogs. We’ve seen at least three different individuals visiting after dark, including one small youngster!
It begs the question “How long have we been getting these visitors without noticing them?”. After all, they generally only visit once it’s dark, so they’ve probably been regulars for months now, before we realised.
I’ve also lifted the lid on the hog cabin and seen tell-tale signs of use; The way the straw is arranged, and how the ground is worn at one end, in a suspiciously hedgehog-sized patch. I’m pretty confident it was home to a hog through last winter, so it’s great to know the hedgehog house is in use.
I’m hoping to take some proper photos at some stage, but for now we’re just putting out extra food and water for them. Hopefully they’ll learn that our garden is a good place to spend time during their nighttime walkabouts. Particularly during this heatwave, they really need our help. The ground is often too hard to dig for invertebrates, and they can become very dehydrated in the humid summer nights.
We now spend every evening popping into the kitchen to check the lawn and see if we have any visitors to watch.
So what are you waiting for? Be gone, and make your hog house!
-
George
