The village in which we live generally has a really good population of hedgehogs which isn't necessarily the case everywhere else: one morning last year I stumbled out of the house at 2:30 am for a bat survey to find one literally sat on our front step, but of course having one in our garden would have made spotting a hedgehog with the girls far too simple this year! Knowing several neighbours have regular visits from hedgehogs gave me a good starting point for the concoction of a PLAN - 'Hedgehog spotting in lockdown: 101'. In reality this involved asking a neighbour if Turtle and I might quietly sit in their garden one evening in a socially distanced manner, to see if we could see 'their' hedgehog, and happily they kindly agreed.
Thus Turtle and I skipped out of the door at 8:45pm - leaving the house a whole hour after her usual bedtime might have been more of an adventure to her than anything else! I had prepared ourselves with a couple of cameras - a thermal handheld one to help see the animal if/when it arrived, and a camera trap I could leave in place in case it was all getting so late I needed to pull the responsible mum card and take her home to bed.
Trying to persuade an active 6yr old that my persistent requests that she were both still and quiet were simply to ensure we didn't scare away the hedgehog before we got a chance to see it fell mainly on deaf ears, but fortunately we had lovely and very understanding company in the form of our (socially distant) guests who also laid on home-made elderflower cordial and raspberry and white chocolate cookies - I'm now slightly concerned that Turtle will expect this level of hospitality for all future mammal excursions!
It was just getting dark towards 10pm when, right on cue, a hedgehog entered the garden via the hedgehog highway between there and the adjacent alley and headed straight for the bowls of water and food laid out in expectation. Turtle sat with her mouth wide open as I quietly talked about what we were seeing. I then had a look through the thermal camera, at which point she duly pushed in front of the camera to come round for a better look herself - nothing like it for proof of presence!
However, for us it was time to go. We gathered up everything including the camera trap which had also captured the experience, gave our thanks and headed off home. I'm still not sure whether the hedgehog or getting home at 10:30 at night made the bigger impression!
British mammal tally: 10
Learn more about hedgehogs here
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