We moved in at the end of January. With the week off work it just gave me enough time to put the bird feeders up for the #BGBW - RSPB's Bird Garden Bird Watch. Hopefully I posted about our scores, will edit this post if I didn't.
Throughout the year we have done a few things to attract wildlife. I admit to failing on this - I want to do more next year. What we did do was to put up a few bird boxes, plant some wild flower areas and plant a lot of sunflowers. The bird boxes were put up early enough but sadly attracted no tenants.
The wild flower seed were actually amazin! They kept growing and flowering and flowering for what seems like forever! The bees loved them, and to be honest, so did I! So much colour, so many different flowers.
But the best thing we did in our garden this year was to start feeding our visiting hedgehogs.
I'd been noticing hog pooh in the garden for a while and had suspected that they'd been coming in and out of the garden, using a small tunnel under the panel fencing. One night, whilst playing cards in the conservatory, Rach said she saw a bum disappear into the bushes. A few nights later we both saw it.. A hedgehog? what else could it be?
So we set about trying to enhance our view of the visitors. Mealworm was put down in the middle of the lawn. Didn't want to put cat food down (recommended hog food) as there are enough cats in the area. It wasn't long before a spiky visitor came a chomping!
One, then two hedgehogs in the garden, How cool was this!
At this point I decided to buy another Bushnell Trailcam.
Had used one before to capture the foxes that fed at Holtwood but was never really brave enough to use it elsewhere so promptly sold it. Despite my friend Grant borrowing it to get great footage of the otters at Rooksbury.
Then first night Hodgecam (as it became to be known) was used, we saw THREE hedgehogs in the garden, Our celebrations were briefly muted in disbeleif when on playback we saw a FOURTH at the top of the shot, something we couldn't see with the naked eye!..
JACKPOT!!
Since then, the numbers have dropped a little. I think the most we have seen has been two for some time now. I'm not complaining, in my eyes, two is still brilliant.
Learning their habits I have been able to direct / locate Hodgecam in good places. The gap under the fence is always worth checking out.
Then we bought a hedgehog house.
My assumption was that two might be living in our garden already. Hard to prove, but they did seem to come from the top of the garden each night. Not sure that assumption is now true, maybe they've moved on. Nature has no rules. But to help the little fellas we bought a Hedgehog Igloo and put it up by the composter, top of the garden. Scattered some bedding around and hoped they'd move in.
Took a while but this weekend I noticed the 'spare' bedding was gone.
Set the camera trap and struck gold! A hedgehog moving in to our house. WE HAVE A TENANT! was my facebook update.
Rightly so.
High Fives all round. We made a house for one of our rapidly declining animals and, they found it!! Sleep well little hodgepig. We are still feeding, so hopefully this one has a strong chance of still being here in the Spring.
650 grams is the ideal weight to survive hibernation. I haven't weighed it, but think we are there. Fingers crossed.
I keep setting Hodgecam, aiming at the top of the garden, not the food bowl. Last night it came up trumps. TWO wood mice in the composter. How cute are they!
As always, thanks for reading. Hopefully you are now doing your 'bit for nature'?
The results are so rewarding.
