Saturday 8 May 2010

A wet but busy Friday night and the mystery of the white-tailed hedgehog

When it came to reviewing the night's video footage, there was so much good material that I really was spoilt for choice. I had a real problem deciding which clips to use to show you here. We'll start off, however, with some nice close-up clips of hedgehogs eating in front of the feeding station:

In the next video, we see the hedgehogs running around a bit more and going in and out of the feeding station. After the first scene fade at around the 0.45 point notice how the hedgehog upon entering the feeding station shakes itself like a dog (it was raining outside). I noticed this behaviour about four or five times when reviewing the night's footage.

All in all, when viewing the night's footage, I believe I counted five different individuals. The hedgehog we see in the next video clip, however, left me puzzled. He (for we can see he is male) appears to have a long white "tail". My worry was that it might be some kind of injury, but I suppose it's possible that it could be a piece of litter or a feather that has become attached to the spines. I'm going to keep a lookout for this hedgehog, in case it is something that requires attention. I'm hoping that it's no big deal, and that the object will be worked loose naturally.

1 comment:

  1. It could well be a piece of some sort of litter. I had one a few nights ago which looked as though it had a dry leaf caught in the spines on its rear end.

    My lot were practicing their Sumo Wrestling last night.

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