It’s a pleasure sharing information, Gr8mums. I might sound like a crazy hog person, but I’ve spent thousands of hours studying hedgehog behaviour – from real life, not just video (although I have done that as well). So that, in general, the behaviours I write about are not behaviours I have seen once or twice, but behaviours I’ve seen repeatedly over the course of years. It helped that I was able to recognise individual hogs by their natural markings and I was very lucky that for a long time, I had a good sized population of hogs in my area, so was able to watch the interactions between them all. It seems a shame not to share some of the knowledge I’ve gained with anyone who’s interested – so you’re welcome.
Glad to hear you got some good video. It sounds as if you might have a female amongst those three – the huffing we hear is probably most often the female during the course of ‘courtship’.
I thought I remembered the three-legged hog was called Tripod, too. Hope he/she returns. Some of the females do return much later than the males, so if she’s a female, she may be late out of hibernation. Seems a strange idea with this Summer like weather, but it is still only April! But there are all the other possibilities, such as someone else starting feeding nearer to where he/she hibernated, etc.
Simbo65 – I think your other half is right – re. breaking up the fight. If you intervened, they might just have started up all over again, out of sight. Hopefully, after the fight, one or other of them would have had the sense to just roll up the next time they met!
