Look at who I saw out back tucking into the mealworms! It's another baby. It's hard to get an idea of scale in this photo, but this little hog is about the size of my hand.
I brought him inside quickly, just to make sure he was healthy. I hope he keeps coming back here to eat - he'll need to put on a lot of weight before hibernation time in just a couple of months.
I believe that the hedgehog seen here on the left in these two "through the cat flap" photos is one of the babies from a few months ago. It's definitely a juvenile and its especially dark face make me wonder if it's the one I called Baby #2. So the little one on the right must be from a more recent batch of babies. They're going to need to fatten up over the next couple of months before hibernation.
I had been thinking these last few days that hedgehog visits were on the decrease, partly because I had noticed that food was being left uneaten. So, last night (as well as the cat flap photos) I put the infrared motion-detector camera out. Looking back at the resultant captures this morning showed that it had been a busy night after all, with perhaps more juveniles visiting that I'd have expected. Here follows a selection of the best of the night's captures:
I've not posted for a little while so I thought another update was due. The nights are getting longer now and the hedgehogs are appearing earlier each night. The first one arrives at around 8pm most nights. You'll notice that the above photo shows a different angle from usual. What happened was that I went to put the camera out, but there was an early hedgehog (pictured) already at the mealworms, so I put the camera down in a temporary position so as not to disturb it, then later on moved it to the usual tried and tested position. As you'll see from the rest of last night's photos, there are still a bunch of hedgehogs visiting, including a couple of the now not quite so small "babies".
I've encountered this particular hedgehog for the past two nights as I was putting food out for them to eat. He (or she) doesn't run away or curl up into a ball, but seems quite happy for me to go about my business around him (or her). Last night I opened the feeding station up to find this hog (identifiable by the blonde "fringe" of spines above the face) already in there eating the previous night's scraps. The hog watched patiently as I filled up the bowl with Iams chicken-flavoured cat food and then started eating it straight away. I even had plenty of time to go back into the house and come out again with the camera for the above photo, before putting the lid gently back onto the feeding station.
There's been a lot of snuffling and burbling noises in the garden, today, and when I looked out - sure enough - there were lots of hogs. Furthermore, I was pleased to see Baby #2 make a reappearance.
Such a shame that this photo is blurred, because it's a lovely grouping.
I've been quite busy going hither and thither recently and unfortunately haven't been able to update the blog, although - of course - the hedgehogs are still being fed each and every night as usual. Unfortunately, I've very cleverly mislaid the charger for the infrared camera, and so I am unable to use that at the moment. Here are a few pictures from last night and earlier tonight of some of my hedgehoggy visitors.
I thought at first that the hog in the foreground was actually Baby #2 - having grown a bit since we last saw him - but I have since seen Baby #2 for real and disproved this. Alas, I haven't seen Baby #1 (a.k.a. Itchy) for about 2 weeks now. If however, I was able to put the infrared camera out, perhaps we'd see him then. I hoping he's still about somewhere. Note the other two hedgehogs in the feeding station in this photograph. There was a lot of snuffling coming from that box!
The same juvenile again on Thursday night.
...and again, tonight.
Posts
