"The Hedgehog Herald"

[Sean Regan]

A check on the cameras this morning revealed no activity at all last night and the food remained untouched.
I'll continue to put some out for a few days.
There's been an awful lot of work being done on the inside of the adjoining semi and half the garden has been paved. The back half still has all the branches of the huge tree that was cut down, but the main trunk has still to come down. All this has still to be cleared. Whether this will have any effect on other hedgehogs I don't know.

 

[MoreRootsMoreFruits]

That one could be in the house then. Maybe it's got enough body fat built up now for some hibernation.
Of course It's still possible that other's may come by too especially if they get disturbed with that work.
Probably be as well to keep an eye out in case any ever showed up during the daytime as they'd likely be benefiting from some quick help in that situation.

 

[Sean Regan]

Yes, it's a sure sign a hedghog is in trouble if it turns up in the daytime.
The one picked up on the camera the night before last must be in the house, as it hasn't been picked up since. The last photo was of it going back in.
Neither camera picked up anything last night.

 

[MoreRootsMoreFruits]

Right, it must like it in there then.
You've certainly developed an important sanctuary and also shown us a very good example of how to improve the design of a hedgehog's house.

 

[Sean Regan]

Right, it must like it in there then.
You've certainly developed an important sanctuary and also shown us a very good example of how to improve the design of a hedgehog's house.

I'm still leaving the cameras out, just in case there's anything more to report.

 

[MoreRootsMoreFruits]

That's great, I'll definitely be checking in then. Really enjoyed it so far thanks

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Best fed hedgehog in Britain, he'll probably sleep 'til midsummer

 

[Sean Regan]

First sighting of a hedgehog this year!

I checked the camera tonight. Hadn't before as none of the food had been eaten. But if it's "our" hedgehog he's been out for a few days. First photos on the camera were five days ago.

But it looked quite large. So it might not be the one that was in the house under the azaleas.

On the videos, it did stick its head in the entrance, but didn't try to go in. Maybe it thought the hole was too small.
Mind you, the food pellets have been in there for nearly two weeks. So I took a hacksaw to it and sawed off a few inches of the entrance tube, to make it slightly less than half the original length.

I've left a few pellets on the brick in front of the entrance as an incentive.

I've done the same with the feeder at the bottom of the garden

So maybe, this will make a difference.

I'm going to leave the camera where it is to see if this works. If it does, I'll train it on the house under the azaleas to see if it's "our," hedgehog that's been on the patio.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

All this uncertainty about which is which and where it's from. Von Frisch who studied bees had a system for marking them based on four colours in six different places on the thorax and abdomen. His morning task was going through the hive and marking all the bees that had hatched since the day before. They say he could identify individuals as they flew past, "Look! There goes 279". Might help

 

[Sean Regan]

More hedgehog activity last night. It attempted to get in the feeder, but despite the entrance tunnel now being very short, it didn't try to push its way in.

Contrast this with last year where in the old house entrance was very much longer, which presented no problems.

As I mentioned before, this seems quite a large hedgehog. The one that hibernated in the house under the azaleas ought to be much thinner without eating for months. So possibly, It didn't survive the cold weather.


The contrary camera at the bottom of the garden, after not picking anything up for weeks, not even me when I've been down to the tea-house to collect a couple of beers, after the camera is activated, picked up this, extreme right edge of the photo.

I would think it came through the new doorway.

It always shows that the battery charge is low despite having an adapter connected to it, like the other one.

I've ordered another camera to replace this one. They've come down a lot in price, £38 with free postage direct from Apeman.

As I mentioned earlier, I'll point the other camera at the hedgehog house under the azaleas, this evening.

 

[Sean Regan]

I checked the cameras this morning and the hedgehog house under the azaleasa had a few visitors last night.

At 6.30pm, "Rocky" the robin.

At 7.02 pm, "Bert" one of our pair of blackbirds

At 7.05pm, one of our several sparrows.

Then hello? Who's this?
At 3.48 am, a hedgehog!

This is a screen-shot at the end of the video the camera takes after a still image.

No further photos or videos. So the hedgehog didn't come out again before 8.00am this morning when the camera turns itself off. But there was no record of it coming out earlier in the evening.
The food in the feeder has not been touched.
So is this the hedgehog that went in last September and has grown in the intervening months and thinks it can no longer get into the house?
The only other activity recorded by the camera, at the bottom of the garden, was this pesky visiting cat.

I'm tempted to make the entrance larger. It's a bit of a pig of a job. I'll have to make the holes in the plywood facias larger and insert a spacer in the tube.

 

[Sean Regan]

Well.. It had to be done. I thought it would be a pig of a job and so it proved to be.

I've made the apertures in the inner and outer facia and inserted a slice of soil pipe in the entrance tube. I could have glued it. But I hadn't any and anyway, it would always be under tension, so it could fail as it would often be damp. It was hard to drill holes in the plastic from the inside and countersink them because of the angle . But it's done. The diameter is now the recommended size. 4.5."
If I'd made it any larger, there's a possibility a cat could get in.
I won't alter the other house. That size of pipe was good enough last year for those hedgehogs that visited our garden. It's early days yet. So I'll see how they get on.

 

[Sean Regan]

There's been some general housekeeping at the occupied home.

Some of the bedding has been dragged out into the entrance.

The first sight of the occupant was at 8.46 pm last night.

Then again at 8.52pm

and finally, at 9.04pm.

But it didn't leave the house at all. Neither was the food touched in the modified feeder. I can only assume it's a bit too cold yet to be permanently active.

The other camera didn't work at all, but I've a replacement on order .

 

[Sean Regan]

"Hallooo!"

I think someone found a tape measure and checked it out.

Some of the pellets in both feeders have been eaten.

The videos last night only showed a hedgehog going into the house under the azaleas and later coming out. So I knew it wasn't occupied, although there was evidence that it had been so previously. So this morning I took it into the shed, cleaned it out, put in fresh hay and put it back again.

My new camera arrived yesterday afternoon, it's more sophisticated than the other two, despite being far cheaper. The definition is better too.


"Testing, testing."

 

[Sean Regan]

Both feeders were cleared of pellets during the night, so things are more or less back to how they were last year.

I'm going to focus the two cameras on the doorways in the fences tonight. To see if I can get a "head count," as one hedgehog couldn't have eaten both lots of pellets.
The dodgy camera focused on the house under the azaleas, didn't work again.