Hi Annie
Further update on the hog box. The hoglet came out the next night and didn’t go back in. Knowing the box was empty, I went against everything I would normally do, and advise other people to do, and opened the box to get the food out. I was worried it might become rotten. I had opened the lid a tiny bit and could see it was far from being a hibernating nest. I managed to get the food (mostly uneaten but completely buried) safely out without disturbing the nesting material too much and then decided to remove the partition as well. I was worried that if the hoglet tried to come back and use the nest, it just wasn’t a big enough space to get sufficient insulating material into. The hoglet had two choices. It didn’t have to use the box again. The interesting thing was that I got a good view of what was being used. Dried leaves and stalks, grasses, and some fresh green leaves. The grasses seemed to be ‘woven’ around amongst the leaves in a more or less circular way.
I didn’t see the hoglet in real time last night, but this morning there was a trail of long grasses leading into the box. Yes, the hoglet had been back and started filling the box again. I had cut some long ornamental grasses and left a pile of them near the box and it had been using some of them. So lucky that the camera came up trumps again and only started misbehaving in the early morning (taking non-stop clips), so lots more clips of the little hog with huge mouthfuls of vegetation. Amazing how much they can get into their tiny mouths. The nest building began about 5 a.m. And finished just after 7, with a roughly half hour break somewhere in between, both days. The hoglet was last seen on the cam going into the box and then I saw the grass which is coming outside the door moving a bit, before all went still a few minutes later.
The whole thing has been fascinating and not something I ever thought I would have the luck to see. If the little hog is planning on hibernating in there (or anywhere else), I just hope all goes well for it.
Haven’t seen Digger for a few days now, so safe hibernation wishes for her too. I can’t be sure that this hoglet is hers, but have a feeling it probably is.
