No More Hedgehogs
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Living close to the country side we first noticed hedgehogs in our garden back in 2004. We started putting food out built hedgehog houses and bought trail cameras to watch what they got up to during their nighr visits. On inspecting the houses in the mornings we would often find one or even three fast asleep in them and would even see their foot prints in the snow some winters. Our last visit by a hog was on the 30th September 2019 at around 01:30am since then they have all disappeared. We kept putting food out but only started to encourage rats so stopped. The only conclusion that we can draw is that neighbours in the street started landscaping their gardens over the pandemic and have detroyed a lot of the garden habitate in which they would shelter during the day, although why being so close to country side none have not ventured out into the gardens to forage we do not understand. I do miss their visits and keep looking round the garden for signs that one might be around but still to date there has been none but we keep hoping.
Hi Colin
That is sad to hear about the absence of hogs there. You could be right and it is caused by fence ‘repairs’ etc. (as well as potential damages to hog habitat) during lockdown and their route to your garden could have been blocked. The timing does seem a bit of a coincidence otherwise.
Sadly, hogs are not doing so well in the wider countryside, where often the habitat is not really suitable for them. So they do rely a lot on gardens, whether in suburbia or in villages – which tend to mimic one of the hogs favoured habitats of woodland edge. It might be worthwhile trying to get a hedgehog highway going there, by encouraging your neighbours to link their gardens by making hog holes in the boundaries. Hogs need several gardens to make up their ranges, so the bigger network they have available to them, the better – and also the less need they have to cross roads with all the hazards that entails.
There is lots of material available if you want to try to encourage your neighbours to help hogs, in:
https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/my-hedgehog-street/free-downloadable-resources/
which can also be accessed via ‘My Hedgehog Street’ (top right of this page).Fingers crossed some hogs will return. I completely understand not wanting to leave uneaten food out because of rats, but it’s a good idea to leave some water available for hogs all day every day, just in case a thirsty one should turn up. I would keep leaving the cameras out if I were you. About this time of year, sometimes some of last years hoglets (especially males) disperse, so hopefully one/some will find your garden again.
Good luck.
Have been putting the camera out to observe a fox visiting our garden and noticed on one video a hedgehog. So glad one has found the garden again after just over 2 years. Have started placing kitten biscuits in the feeding stations and watched on the cameras as the hog has started to find its way around and is now becoming a regular visitor. Hopefully it will find the hedgehog houses and decide to stay over a few nights.
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