Hedgehog heaven.

Despite the lack of birds in the garden (although I added a fly-over Skylark today garden list No. 18) our little patch of England is apparently rather attractive to hedgehogs.

We put some food out one night to see if any passing hedgehogs would be tempted, the food had mostly gone by the morning, but we were unsure if the hedgehogs themselves had been or whether one of the many cats hereabouts had helped him or herself to our al fresco smorgasbord.

We decided to set up a camera trap, and were delighted to see that indeed we were visited by at least one hedgehog, but less delighted to see we were also visited by more than one cat!

Elis then set about creating a hedgehog hotel, a wooden box for the animals to hibernate in should they feel so disposed, which was then filled with loads of snuggly dry leaves.

Hedgehog hotel

She then set up a hedgehog restaurant using a design she had seen on the internet, constructed quite simply from a plastic container with a hedgehog sized hole cut in it. Being transparent you can see if any animals are in there availing themselves of the food. Again we set up the camera trap, but this time inside the container, we saw a cat come by and sniff around, but he was thwarted by our cunning plan and then not only did we see a hedgehog inside the restaurant eating away, we saw two at one point, hedgehog junction!

Hedgehog restaurant

Last night in the bitter cold we actually saw one with our own eyes for the first time and he sat and ate to his heart's content.

Happy hedgehog diner

Once he had had his fill he squeezed past Elis (that brown blob is her knee), shot around the corner and into the hedgehog hotel! Result!

S'cuse me, just passin' through

Hedgehogs need our help and we are thrilled to be able to do something positive for our local population.