Cunning use of a rubber mat

Here's a hedgehog video from last night. Note the black rubber mat (as typically used on car floors) in the foreground. I'm using this to reduce infrared glare and am glad to say that it works quite nicely. Unfortunately I can't do anything about glare off the hogs themselves!

No hogs until the early hours of Saturday morning

I was a little worried last night because I saw not a sign of any hedgehog activity, and was wondering what must have happened to them. However, I left the infrared motion-detector camera out and sure enough there were lots of comings and goings later on. This would have been in the early hours of Saturday morning.

I have to confess that I'm a little jealous of those who have early evening hedgehog visitors. I'd love to be able to watch them in better light. Unfortunately "my" hogs seem to be getting later and later as the weeks go by.

Not so many hogs on Tuesday night...

...but I still managed to capture some nice video footage:

On this video I have experimented with some simple zoom effects, which I think makes it more interesting.

I wonder if the "special guest" seen early in the video may have been responsible for last night's decline in numbers of hedgehog visitors?

Visitor on a Monday night

It's funny how quickly hedgehogs come and go. I'd seen a few hog visitors last night when looking through the window. Checking that the coast was clear I went outside to make sure there was still enough food left out when I saw this hog standing nearby. I was sure it hadn't been there when I looked out the window. I went back inside and saw a second hog arrive and the two started the circling dance.

Lots of hedgehogs in the garden on Saturday night

Having recently been worried about a decline in hedgehog visitors to my garden, I'm happy to report that this last Saturday night, the patio and hedgehog feeding station were positively bustling with hedgehogs. As usual, there are bowls of food in the feeding station (one of "Spike's Dinner", one of mealworms), plus two bowls of water on the patio, and a sprinkling of mealworms on the paving slabs of the patio to encourage the hogs closer to the camera.

Sunday night's hedgehog movie

At twenty seconds shy of six minutes, this is quite a long video this time, but I hope you'll agree it contains some lovely hedgehog footage.

It is compilation of footage of hedgehogs in my garden on Sunday night, 12th July 2009, videoed throughout the night and into Monday morning using a motion-sensitive infrared camera. There are lots of lovely close-ups of hedgehogs eating mealworms and going in and out of the feeding station.

The feeding station is there for the hedgehogs to have somewhere safe to eat where birds and cats can't steal their food. However, I did scatter some mealworms around outside the feeding station so as to encourage the hedgehogs nearer to the camera.

Note the difference in picture quality after some rain has fallen. The wet paving slabs don't seem to reflect as much infrared light back at the camera. I'm wondering if it might be worthwhile deliberately wetting the paving slabs in future.

Note the woodpigeon at the very end of the video once it is daylight. A case of the early bird catches the mealworm that the hedgehog missed in the night.

All quiet on a Monday night

I don't seem to be having as many hedgehog visitors as usual these past few days. The food seems to be in the bowls for longer and I just don't see many hogs when I look out the back. The above-pictured hog is the only one that I've seen tonight. I'm sure others will be along later.

I left the infrared camera out last night (I'll make and post a movie tomorrow) and considering it was out all night there wasn't that much hedgehog action. The footage was mainly of a single hog at a time, with a couple of clips showing two hogs. And to think only a couple of weeks ago the garden was busy with hedgehogs and one night I saw four together at the same time.

Thursday Night Hedgehog photos

Messy eaters, those hogs!

First Sunflower of the Year

I was pleased to see yesterday that the first of my sunflowers has flowered. Today it has opened its petals fully. That's about a month earlier than last year's sunflowers.

I'm sorry I've not been able to post recently but I've been very busy with an intense writing project. I have, however, been feeding the hedgehogs as always.

Last night's first hedgehog visitor actually came before it got fully dark. This picture is taken through the plastic of the feeding station.