Baby and adult hedgehog

The new baby is still visiting, it seems (unless it's a different baby) and here in these photos you can get a better idea of its size when seen alongside an adult hedgehog.

Hogs on Tuesday night

As you can see in these pictures from Tuesday night, the garden is still busy with hedgehogs at times!

A new baby hedgehog

Look at who I saw out back tucking into the mealworms! It's another baby. It's hard to get an idea of scale in this photo, but this little hog is about the size of my hand.

I brought him inside quickly, just to make sure he was healthy. I hope he keeps coming back here to eat - he'll need to put on a lot of weight before hibernation time in just a couple of months.

Thursday night's hogs

More baby hedgehogs and a busier Friday night than I expected

I believe that the hedgehog seen here on the left in these two "through the cat flap" photos is one of the babies from a few months ago. It's definitely a juvenile and its especially dark face make me wonder if it's the one I called Baby #2. So the little one on the right must be from a more recent batch of babies. They're going to need to fatten up over the next couple of months before hibernation.
I had been thinking these last few days that hedgehog visits were on the decrease, partly because I had noticed that food was being left uneaten. So, last night (as well as the cat flap photos) I put the infrared motion-detector camera out. Looking back at the resultant captures this morning showed that it had been a busy night after all, with perhaps more juveniles visiting that I'd have expected. Here follows a selection of the best of the night's captures:

Hedgehogs in September

I've not posted for a little while so I thought another update was due. The nights are getting longer now and the hedgehogs are appearing earlier each night. The first one arrives at around 8pm most nights. You'll notice that the above photo shows a different angle from usual. What happened was that I went to put the camera out, but there was an early hedgehog (pictured) already at the mealworms, so I put the camera down in a temporary position so as not to disturb it, then later on moved it to the usual tried and tested position. As you'll see from the rest of last night's photos, there are still a bunch of hedgehogs visiting, including a couple of the now not quite so small "babies".

I seem to have a tame hedgehog visiting

I've encountered this particular hedgehog for the past two nights as I was putting food out for them to eat. He (or she) doesn't run away or curl up into a ball, but seems quite happy for me to go about my business around him (or her). Last night I opened the feeding station up to find this hog (identifiable by the blonde "fringe" of spines above the face) already in there eating the previous night's scraps. The hog watched patiently as I filled up the bowl with Iams chicken-flavoured cat food and then started eating it straight away. I even had plenty of time to go back into the house and come out again with the camera for the above photo, before putting the lid gently back onto the feeding station.

However, numbers are severely down this last week. I'm hoping it's just the bad weather that is deterring them.

Saturday night and the hog with the bad leg is back

Early hours of Sunday morning: This is the same little hog that came to visit the previous Saturday night - the one I was worried about because I thought she was walking funny. (I say "she" because my feeling is this is a girl hog, but I could be wrong).

This picture illustrates why I was worried about this little hog. Here we see her trying to make a swift exit - but look at the way she's dragging that hind right leg. That can't be right.

I then did something I hadn't done before - I picked her up to have a look. Now, I don't like handling hogs - I don't want to scare them unduly - but I've been reading Hugh Warwick's "A Prickly Affair" and he talks about handling hogs as if it's no big deal. Besides, I wanted to see if I could help her. However, she curled up into a tight ball so I couldn't see her face or any of her limbs, so unfortunately I couldn't inspect her bad leg. Not that I'd know what to do about it anyway, unless it was something obvious like a Post Office rubber band wrapped around it.

I put her back on the ground and left her some mealworms. Here we see her tentatively having a look to see if the coast is clear. Poor little hog.

By the way, she came back again on Sunday night, so she couldn't have been too traumatised by my picking her up the previous night. I watched her very carefully this time and noted that she can move very fast indeed, despite the painful-looking dragging of the right hind leg. She obviously seems able to get around alright. All I can do is keep watching for her, I suppose.

Under the table

For some reason the hogs really seem to like sitting under the garden table behind the grow bags on the patio.

Cheeky Hog

This hog was waiting right outside the back door for me to come out and fill up the hedgehog bowl with mealworms! I swear he was looking through the window. Look at his little face... what a cutie!

It was quite a brave little hog and didn't run away when I went outside to fill the hedgehog bowl with mealworms, and even after I went back for my camera so as to get these pictures, he still didn't run away. Later on he did go around and hide behind one of the large flowerpots and very cheekily peered round the side to look at me as if playing peek-a-boo. I definitely got the impression that this was quite a playful little hog.