Trail cam

[NapoleonsBird]

I was given a trail cam for Christmas which I’d been setting up randomly around the garden, mostly capturing cats I’d never seen during the day and a muntjac deer who pops in now n then at all times.
Well I was cutting a big handful of grass for my Guinea pigs when I saw Poop. The kind I hadn’t seen for years unmistakable hedgehog poop. In the evening I set up my camera, put a couple of spoons full of cat food into a bowl and pretty excited went to bed. Christmas all over again.
In the morning most of the food had been eaten. I attached the camera to the laptop and yes a lovely big hedgehog coming and going a few times throughout the night. That was a week ago and the hedgie has been back every night. The only other creature to visit the bowl was a mouse. I am beginning to suspect that there are two hedgehogs, my fingers are crossed for that.
Anyway I’m made up that I’ve got hogs back in the garden because I remember as a teen we fed a whole bunch every night and since then they’ve disappeared.
Is it too early to declare myself a hedgehog mum and name him/her (how do I tell?) something inappropriate/daft?

[Leon Roskilly]

How exciting :).

It was after a couple of years of not seeing any signs of hogs in my Kentish garden, then a return of little ‘presents’ left on the lawn, (after I’d set aside some of the garden as a ‘wild’ area) and finally the sound of 2 hedgehogs getting it together beneath a rosemary bush, that had me determined to make my garden a place where hedgehogs could thrive.

I’ve now 3 hog houses, and 2 feeding stations and lots of hogs visiting 🙂

Good luck with yours.

[Nic]

Hi NapoleonsBird

So pleased to hear you have at least one hog back there. If you have a camera, the hogs sometimes help us out by scratching right in front of them so we can see if they are male or female. The males have a ‘blob’ mid-abdomen. Keep the camera near the food for a while and the hog might have a scratch in front of it. You can learn to tell one hog from another by their natural markings.

But you can also tell male from female by their behaviour. Males are much more likely to biff another male. During courtship the male will circle the female whilst she turns round and round within the circle, huffing as she goes and her little legs pattering up and down – almost like a little jig.

I often find a name which will do for either male or female just in case. But beware of getting too attached to individuals – it can lead to sadness if anything happens to them (with wild animals, so much is out of our control) – but the hogs also give us a lot of delight, which I think more than makes up for that. And hogs have to be wild and free – that is part of the magic of them – that it is they who choose whether to honour us with their presence.

Good luck with the hogs, and here’s hoping for some hoglets later on.

[Author]

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