Getting ready for Spring

The air is getting warmer, albeit tantalisingly slowly, plants are starting to bud and animals are slowly coming back to life. Yes everyone, Spring is finally here and it is well known as the time of new life and a fresh start, so here are a few things you can do to help young animals find their feet in this big ol’ world.

Firstly, I keep saying this because it is so important!! Leaving food out, it really helps young animals trying to put on as much weight as possible before the the winter comes. Although it may seem a little early to be thinking about the winter again for these animals it is a matter of life and death, if they can’t get big and strong enough quickly enough then they will die. So, bird feeders, hedgehog food, even you’re own waste scraps of food, can really help. A great thing to do is start a compost heap, this will attract animals like worms which are great fodder for birds!

tasty food for our prickly friends – also how much you should put out each night

Building houses. Haha, not in the literal sense of the word, but have you ever thought of building a bird box, of how about a hedgehog house. You can buy bird houses that you can build yourself, or pre-made ones on websites such as amazon, and trust me there are some particularly awesome ones on there. You could also build a bug hotel (instruction can found on the RSPB website) or once again buy (also on amazon). Hedgehog houses sound hard, but they really don’t have to be. Instruction on how to build one can be found on the British hedgehog Preservation Society, but you can also buy them on amazon!

our hedgehog house camouflaged in leaves

One last thing you can do is leave an area of you’re garden to grow wild! This will encourage all kinds of wildlife into your garden, butterflies, bees, birds, hedgehogs. Leaving an area of garden to nature, can make for a brilliant spot for wildlife all around and you’ll find yourself surrounded by beautiful creatures.

Well that’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed my post, and will do some of the things that I have written about! Don’t forget to like, subscribe and comment below!!! See you all next week!

Woahhhhhh So EXCITING

Hi everyone yes I am back again, but with incredibly exciting news I have caught our new hedgehog AGAIN! (On camera obviously) But this time it’s not just pictures it’s a video. That’s right I set my camera onto video mode because I wanted to see more than just still pictures and was rewarded with an adorably cute video of my new hedgehog have a watch.

can you see him snuffling around

This is incredibly exciting as it shows that the first time I caught the hedgehog, wasn’t just a fluke and that our little friend comes to our garden on a regular basis. So exiting!

The competition to name him/her is still on just write the hedgehog’s name hyphen hedgehog e.g. “bob-hedgehog” and possibly leave a like thank you so much!!

The good, the bad and the wild

Writing to you, looking out of my window I see a new garden scene. Yes that’s right it has come a terrible time of sadness for all. After living in my house for almost 14 years I have moved and left little Russ behind, but don’t worry the new people know he’s there and have said they will continue to look after Russ. Despite the sadness there is some good news in my new garden there is a hedgehog! I left my camera up for a whole week and got two shots of her/him. Although I cannot be certain I hope to continue this hedgehog blog with our new friend, but be aware I am moving house again next month so this time of glory may be short lived:(

It is a little hard to see the hedgehog in this photo but if you go to the tree and look down the photo slightly to the right is our little friend hiding behind a tuft of grass!

More excitement unfolds as well as I am deciding to broaden the blog to talk about the other wildlife in my new garden as there is so much!! Even a fox! quite a few squirrels as well and of coarse no garden would be complete without the good old pigeon.

Rather too lively for me at 8 in the morning

just thought the magpie looked really cute standing next to the buttercup

I have decided as well to hold a competition for the best name as I can’t for the life of me think of a good one for my new hedgehog!! If you want to give my new hedgehog a name please leave a comment with the, “name” – hedgehog, and possibly a like. E.g. “Bob-hedgehog” “like“. Thank so much and I look forward to writing more about whoever are new hedgehog friend is!

He’s back

After a long, long few months I can finally start writing again as we have officially confirmed our litte Russ is back. After his months long vacation in the land of hibernation our little hedgehog is back and prowling the streets so I look forward to spamming you all with adorable photos of our little Russ!!

Russell started hibernation sometime in December and as it was quite mild we weren’t sure whether he would hibernate or not but he ended up doing so which left me Russ free for a few months and I think we can all imagine how that went, but it did give me time to plan few ideas for more hedgehog related posts as well as keeping you up to date with your weekly dose of Russell cuteness,

Bye for now !!

Russ update

Thought you all might like to see some more pictures of our favourite little hedgehog. Anyone out there who knows what a pregnant hedgehog looks like??!! Also shortened his name to Russ so it could be either Russella or Russell. I did a quick bit of maths this morning and I figured that we should see our little hoglets between the 1st of September and the 21st of September!! If she is pregnant is she is a she!

coming home exhausted from a hard nights foraging

looking for food where he knows he’ll get it!!

p.s. if any of you want one of these cameras they come from a charity in Wales called nature spy, they are called trap cameras. So just search up nature spy and go to their shop! I personally have the browning type, but there are loads of different cameras to choose from under the browning type and other types:)

If you find an injured hedgehog

Ok so first, if a hedgehog is out in the day time it is probably very ill and although it may not be injured it needs medical care and attention. If you find a hedgehog out during the day time and it is unwell or injured you should call a hedgehog rescue centre. Below I have listed some numbers you could call:

Tiggywinkles – Haddenham near Aylesbury – 01844 292 292

Hedgehog Bottom – Newbury near Reading – 01635 826 120

Hedgehog Rescue – Bristol – 07971 663 009

Prickles Hedgehog Rescue – Cheddar – 07806 744 772

Wild Hogs Hedgehogs Rescue – Gloucester – 07949 967 717

These numbers are to be used in an emergency.

However here is where it gets slightly complicated. Female hedgehogs come out during the day when building their nests for when they have their babies. So how do you tell if it is a hedgehog that needs help or a mother gathering materials for her nest. A sick hedgehog won’t be moving around very much whereas a mother getting materials will be constantly searching around. When hoglets are around 4 weeks old they too sometimes venture out in the day. So if you see little hedgehogs running around in August or September don’t be alarmed they are probably just babies. Also mothers building nests will be going around your garden and taking back to wherever they have decided to build their nest so if the are wondering around with leaves in their mouths don’t worry the hedgehog isn’t sick.

If you do find an injured or sick hedgehog you must put thick gloves on get a box and put the hedgehog in then call you nearest hedgehog rescue centre. Give the hedgehog a bit of water and if you have hedgehog food a little of that as well!!

hedgehog food

Hedgehogs have to eat LOADS of food before hibernation, they have to have lots of fat reserves to keep them going all Winter. Giving hedgehogs food is a really good way to help stop hedgehog populations declining. Also if you put the hedgehog food out in the open the hedgehog will come and get it and so if you go out in evenings you can see your hedgehog close up, I sprinkle them around the garden and you can hear the hedgehogs crunching on them. I have just gone and brought hedgehog food from a supermarket but you can buy them online and in wildlife shops, and my hedgehog always eats all of it, he is surprisingly good at finding all of the little nuggets. I put out my hedgehog food out every other day so that my hedgehog doesn’t become dependent on it, but has enough to keep him in the area and interested. I put out about a handful of pellets by his hedgehog house and then I sprinkle a few more pellets around the garden. This is so that I keep, the hedgehog moving around the garden so he/she can find slug and snail hotspots and as I have mentioned before I can also see my hedgehog close up.

In the wild hedgehogs eat pretty much everything here is a list of what

hedgehog food pellets — tasty food for our prickly friends

they eat:

Beetles
Caterpillars
Earthworms
Bird eggs
Small mammals e.g grass snakes and small lizards
Millipedes
Earwigs
Bees
and finally some small birds

So my dad for the Autumn and Winter moves the compost heap over to near the hedgehog house.

The British Hedgehog Preservation Society is a great website that can give you even more detail on how to look after our prickly friends.

Homes for Hedgehogs

There is nothing more amazing then having a hedgehog in your garden. Building a home will really encourage them to stay. Hedgehog numbers, sadly, are falling, due to loss of habitat, so by building a home you will help the conservation workers hoping to improve our hedgehog numbers.

I made my hedgehog house because I found The British Hedgehog Preservation Society website. This tells you loads of stuff about hedgehogs and has activities for kids too. If you go on their website and go to leaflets the 3rd one down is hedgehog homes.

So without further ado here is how I built my hedgehog house;

There are two important things to building a hedgehog house:

the the entrance must by at least 30 cm long and 13cm by 13 cm in height and width, this is so that predators like cats, foxes and badgers can’t get in.

2. The hedgehog must have space to move round lie down and stand up. The hedgehog preservation society recommends the house being around 40 cm long and 26cm wide, but their drawings are quite complicated.

We built our hedgehog home out of some spare wood, and we also attached roofing felt to the plank of wood that made the roof. We screwed the pieces of wood together, and found a leafy well hidden place in our garden. We also got some straw from the local horse riding stables to make a comfy bed but you don’t have to do this as a hedgehog will make its own bed. Don’t worry about having to clean it out because hedgehogs know that they shouldn’t poo in their bed.

Personally I had so much fun making my hedgehog house and it was great to see the finished result. I also love to go out at night around dusk time and watch my hedgehog come out of his house. Mine comes out about 8:30 pm in the late summer and once you have discovered when they go out you can do it all the time, as hedgehogs tend to have a routine that they stick to. They are quite tame and don’t mind humans being around, they also don’t mind torches being shone on them as long as you don’t keep doing it and keep the bursts of light short.