Hedgehog Haven

My Dear Princess and Loulou and Fellows, 

I love that Caro has created this little wildlife haven out the back. It's a constant source of delight to me. 

The birds out back are raising their chicks. There are loads of greedy juvenile sparrows out there now, flapping their stubby little wings at their parents. Even while they sit in the middle of the food. Lazy little buggers. 

I also saw a blackbird chick sitting in our tree. It was bouncing up and down with excitement, every time dad flew up there with another beakful of food. 

At the moment we also have Monarch butterflies bouncing about like bad special effects. I keep trying to get a picture, but they are very uncooperative. Caro is growing insect-attracting flowers, so maybe I'll get lucky one day. 

And then there are these spiky little things. The big fat hedgehog shoved the little one out of the way. I get the impression that hedgehogs are not too bright, because the little one just sort of hung around going, "Errrr...." even though there was ANOTHER plate of food just behind her. 

She bumbled about, going around all the garden furniture before eventually figuring it out. 

We are unsure if they are a mating pair. Caro heard some strange noises the other day, and I looked up hedgehog mating on YouTube. I played the noise for her. 

"That's it!" she said. 

So there's definitely some bow-chicka-bow-wow going on, on the other side of our fence. It would be nice if we got little hoglets visiting us later on in the Summer. 

I like the idea of our providing all this wildlife with a safe little space for them to eat, raise families and have wild, prickly sex.

And today, I have to admit, New Zealand in general feels like a bit of a haven from the outside world. 

S.