Feeding the Rats (...and hedgehogs) part 1

We are all encouraged to feed garden birds and look after our local hedgehogs.

But its difficult to do this without boosting the population of pests, such as rats.

So is there anything we can do to get the balance right?

What we have learnt about hedgehogs

We have been capturing pictures & video of hedgehogs in our garden for the last 18 months.

Its been very interesting.

So what have we discovered?

our Huffing Hedgehog

Apparently hedgehogs have a range of sounds that they can make depending upon their mood and situation.

The sound on our trail-cam has always been a bit 'iffy', but when it works it can reveal interesting behaviour.

We noticed a faint sound on some recent recordings, so I cranked up the audio level by 18dB...

Hedgehogs don't like slugs!

Its very easy to plant ideas into peoples minds, but very difficult to remove them when they are wrong.

And the internet only makes matters worse due to the ease of content "copy & paste" operations on already incorrect information. 

the Hog is back!

After an absence of 4 or 5 years, the hedgehogs have returned to our garden.

Well, one hog, at least that's a start.

So now we need to give this little guy a helping hand.

Nature with Tech 2018

Although we have had some very bright, sunny days during February, it has also often been very cold.

And it looks like we have some seriously cold days to come during early March.

However, there are still some signs that our garden birds are thinking about nest building...