A naked meeting with Mrs Tiggywinkle in the night

A bump in the night

It was warm, very warm this last week. Sleeping with all the windows open, something woke me in the early hours. You know how you lie dead still, holding your breath; afraid whatever is there will hear you, but also desperate not to create a sound to distract your straining ears from the outside night. Yes, there was definitely something out there. I hung my head from upstairs into the gloom of the garden below, and now it was my eyes straining to pick out the source of my disturbance. My dear wife likes to keep the larder window open in the summer, and although it has a metal bar attached it is always my first port of call to check no nutter has silently hacksawed their way through it in the wee hours. Nope all clear on that front.

Flashing through my mind was badger, fox, muntjac, maybe a hedgehog. That last thought made me move quickly downstairs, grabbing a torch, and before I knew it, I was on the outside step naked with a new dawn of realism. I am not sure I wanted to meet a badger in the ‘all together’ sandwiched between the house and the kitchen garden wall. “Pull yourself together man.” You have a torch; you can always blind it, or hit him with it, and besides it will not see your frailties. Emboldened by my new assessment and the warmth of a sultry night. I progressed towards the source of the noise, growing louder from behind a tall row of teasel, I had planted to attract brimstones on the purple blooms and later in the year goldfinches for their seeds.  I am now in full stalking mode, (and please no references to stalking in the buff), that moonwalking, Biden shift, trying not to disturb the very air we breathe. I am getting closer to the snuffles and imagining chewing noises. No fear I still have my torch, and then a teasel stem rips into my stomach. A massive intake of air and a forced silent internal scream. Ignore the pain. There dead ahead snuffling and chewing is a large hedgehog. It is now his turn to freeze and be silent. He does not roll up into the classic ball, but stiffens and raises his bristles. I retreat, mission accomplished "Good night little creature, and feel free to wake me up anytime". Excellent, my suspicions of the shiny black tapered faeces I have found on the lawn were accurate and it was worth getting up in the middle of the night to acquaint myself with Mr or Mrs Tiggywinkle. I was still naked but no longer afraid.

Roadkill is a good sign in a bad way. Yes?

It was ten years ago we last saw hedgehogs in the garden, but since the night of ‘Brock the bad’ beating up ‘our’ family, it seemed they were all gone. However, this spring I had seen a couple in the village at night and one of those auspicious corpses, legs in the air on the main A4. Has the local badger cull made a difference, or maybe our current summer, together with last year's wet and cool weather? Probably a bit of both.

Positive poo

Observation now confirmed, the next morning I thought I would take a photo of a scat I had seen the previous day to help you the readers identify a positive poo. Ironically, all that remained was a gathering of pedal slug mucus, a crisscrossing of glycoproteins glistening in the dew. Atonement for the slugs, to eat remnants of their brothers in the scat of their predatory foe. However, I did find this slightly smaller version that I am so pleased to share with you, even if it has meant my son thinks I have now completely lost the plot. The thrill of searching for animals is often there in just finding a trace, an element of their passing by. I had the great pleasure of recently meeting Matthew Oates of Purple Emperor fame as we searched for ‘His Imperial Majesty’ in the high oaks, unfortunately to no avail. But he did tell me how you can search for their vacated pupal cases in the Autumn, and how he once found one in Savernake Forest ‘fluttering on the breeze’ in early winter, and how with its strong silky attachment to a sallow leaf node meant it was still there the following March. Now that is the sort of observational nature clue, I find fascinating.

Do hedgehogs really use those shop-bought homes?

Having started the day on a positive note, I recalled the night’s adventure with my neighbour, who promptly brought me around a hedgehog house he had been given, that he thought inappropriate in his garden, with his inquisitive spaniel. Now I have always been sceptical of hedgehog houses, often advertised as exposed on a perfect lawn with a CGI-implanted hedgehog smiling on the outside, surrounded by baby hogs. I would also hypothesise that they want somewhere sheltered enough to provide a hibernaculum, in the reality of winter winds, rain, and frost. With this in mind, we placed the hog house at the bottom of a thick yew hedge to provide year-round cover, sheltered by a fence to the east and a building to the north. This is the same place a muntjac calved this spring. What is good enough for a deer must be good enough for a hedgehog.

We filled the inside with dried grasses and leaves, before placing big rocks all around in case big bad brock comes nosing around one night when I am not there to defend any inhabitant with my torch. Finally, for extra insulation, we covered it with more dead vegetation. 

The house should be unnecessary, redundant, with our many piles of dead logs and scattered piles of sarsen stones around the garden, but it can't do any harm. I worry about rats. I hope my scepticism is unfounded.