Hi Jens
Yes, I read that they like medium sized leaves. Not a very good description – what is a medium sized leaf? I was thinking it meant birch leaf sized (medium in relation to hawthorn), but I suppose that would be small in relation to a horse chestnut or some of the Acers. Most of the leaves the hoglet used, look as if they were from a Weigela shrub, but it may be just because it was quite near. There was also a fair bit of long grass going in.
The hoglet didn’t go back in this morning, so I have been able to carefully remove the food bowl, as I suspected with the food mostly not eaten. I noticed that a hogilo (a sort of igloo shaped basket for hedgehogs) further down the garden also looks as if it has had leaves taken in, so maybe the hoglet has moved there. I am quite pleased it didn’t start hibernating in the box, as with the partition in, the ‘chamber’ really seemed too small to get enough insulating material (leaves, etc.) in.
I feel so lucky that the camera actually caught so much of the hog going into the hog house with great mouthfuls of vegetation. It was interesting that the hoglet seemed to be behaving just like normal most of the night and then suddenly it started rushing around looking for leaves at about 5 a.m. almost like a switch had been turned on.
To be fair to hogs in general, though, it was only one hog and a youngster, at that, so, very far from being any kind of definitive proof of how hogs like to make their nests.
