Hedgehog

It's all going to be Thunderbirds are Go here for the next six weeks or so as children zip up and down to Glasgow, move, start new jobs and children (and grandchild) arrive from the US to Oxford, move in to new house, start  job,  nursery. We reckon we are bang smack in the middle of both locations.  At present our days are spent making plans, picking fruit, seeing to the garden and allotment, ordering essentials, seeing to cats, rabbit, birds and now hedgehogs.

Having watched up to four hedgehogs arrive each night punctually at 10.19, I've treated myself to a night camera.  Last night was such a lovely evening that I pottered late in the kitchen with the stable door open to see if they all arrive together.  There were just two whilst I was out and about, coming from totally opposite directions to snuffle around the base of the elder tree for the mealworms dropped from the feeders, and to eat the supplementary food I've put out.   I'm doing some hedgehog research so I've signed up to a site and logged our hedgehogs on the nationwide map.  Their main campaign is to encourage us all to make a hedgehog hole in our fence/wall as they like to wander anything up to 2k each night.  As we are an open terrace at the back of our houses, that is not necessary but I might have a word with the folks who have 'illegally' fenced off their patches.

When I have watched them at bedtime, they have usually spent around half an hour around the saucers and then buzzed off, but the camera shows them being active backwards and forwards until 4am!