Hi Hogmeister
Although, some people do tend to talk about the hedgehog rut in May, it isn’t really like the deer rut. That is probably just the busiest time. In fact in can go on all Summer to a lesser degree. It just tends to go quieter if some of the females are off having and rearing youngsters. There were a couple of hogs ‘courting’ here last night.
Sounds typical a hog taking advantage of the others being too busy to notice him! I can just picture the ‘glancing over’! He may have been a less dominant hog, who the others didn’t think was any competition.
Re. hoglets. I have found that they don’t turn up here until they are more independent. I have only once seen a couple following their Mum. I wonder whether Mum doesn’t bring them here when they are smaller because there are often males around. Having said that, I have always found that all the males have impeccable manners with the hoglets and will let them get away with completely taking a food bowl over. If there have been some hoglets nearby to you that is good and will, hopefully, keep the population going. So far this year the nearest I’ve seen to a hoglet is some suspiciously small hog poos. I am hopeful that there are some and they have just developed their invisibility talents at an early age!
Going back to the name of your topic, I kept hearing some noises from the ‘courting’ hogs last night, in between the female huffing (not sure which, they were hidden in the undergrowth) which sounded (each one) a bit like a single quack! (as opposed to the quack, quack, quack that ducks do). Not sure of the significance, but shortly after that he gave up and returned to feeding.
