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Ian's Hedgehog

Ian Harding is one of the 'Friends' who lives in Adder Hill and he writes the story of his hedgehog.

We have been aware of hedgehogs in our garden for several years now but had only rarely seen one. Usually we find their droppings on the lawn and leaf litter thrown around at the lawn edges.

One afternoon last autumn, I went out on to our patio where we have a small ornamental fountain. I noticed a movement at the base of the fountain and to my surprise, found a hedgehog almost fully immersed in the water. It was almost as surprised as I was and climbed quickly out and scurried away across the lawn into the shrubs. It seemed unusual to find a hedgehog out and about in broad daylight.

A little later in the year, we found what appeared to be a rough nest of leaves and twigs on the ground beneath an evergreen shrub. I thought it must have been made by some kind of bird but at the wrong time of year ! We watched for any sign of activity but none occurred and then we discovered another complete heap of leaves, twigs etc on the opposite side of the garden, beneath a low growing conifer.

At this point we decided we must have been blessed with a nesting hedgehog so we left the heap alone through the winter and sure enough, about six weeks ago, we found the heap had been pushed open from the inside and the contents strewn across the border.

Since then, 'our' hedgehog has been seen regularly patrolling the lawn and borders in the late evening and obviously clearing up any slugs, snails, beetles etc which dare to invade our garden now.

I should say that without knowing it, I had created the right environment for the 'visitor' by deeply mulching the borders with shredded buddleia cuttings and though not really desirable, the shredded cuttings from our leylandii, which formed sufficient material along with the shed leaves from other shrubs to allow nest building for hedgehogs.

On the theme of nests, we have also been privileged to have hosted a pair of flycatchers for two years, which nest in a wisteria on the front of the house. Robins, wrens, blackbirds and greenfinches nest in the ivy on the front of the house and thrushes in the pyracanthus in the back garden. We have bluetits in the tit box and are regularly visited by great, coal and long tailed tits. Wood pigeons and rock doves visit regularly along with chaffinches and once a pair of blackeaps. We also get the occasional 'nutty' magpie and a jay. Sparrow hawks visit from time to time to cull the small bird population and we have seen gold and bull finches this spring.

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