Hi Nic
Yes there was a hog-sized chamber in the middle when I removed some of the nesting material. I put a bit of straw and hay in there to start it off last year but the sheer volume of stuff it added to it is amazing, I emptied it out and it two-thirds filled a standard 50L compost bag. Considering the small mouthfuls of stuff they take in at a time it’s a lot of work for the hog.
I put the camera in the air pipe at the back and weirdly there was a gap all along the back of the house so although the hibernacula was very dense and compact it didn’t actually fill the space. I could get the camera probe in quite easily at the back but at the front it immediately hit a lot of resistance so I didn’t push it further just in case the hog was still in there and I didn’t want to prod it with the probe.
I had the camera pointed at the front last year and noticed when the hog entered each time it was quite careful to scooch down as it went in so as not to bulldoze a big hole in the hibernacula each time so maybe it did the same coming out this year and it just didn’t leave a noticeable hole. It now seems to be staying under the decking in the back garden at least some of the time. Do they always evacuate the hibernacula when they wake up as it would seem sensible to keep using it as a nightly nest and not have to find somewhere else?
