Having seen a hedgehog on the front path a few nights ago, we started to put a few mealworms out for them. The mealworms have been eaten, and they have left a few poos in return. We set up a temporary camera through the letterbox the night before last, but the muppet currently sitting typing this forgot to press the record button.
Last night we were going out for a meal, so we set the camera up through the letter box again, the record button was duly clicked and we set off for our Chinese meal. We returned just after 10:30 pm, to find no hedgehog on the path, but the mealworms had been displaced. We sneaked a look in the boiler house, and yes, there was a hedgehog curled up in there. We assumed it had run when we arrived. We put in a few handfuls of straw so it would have a bit of comfort and left it in peace.
We found there had been three visits to the front door while we were away, the last just before we arrived home, but the hedgie hadn't been in any hurry to leave, so I don't think we frightened it and it had retired to the boiler room of its own accord.
This is the second visit of the evening. The hedgie arrives up the path and exits left, through a gap between two plant pots, which leads to the boiler room.
Checking this morning, we found we had had twelve separate visits by hedgehogs between 8:00 pm and 6:00 am. We haven't worked out how many different individuals, but we think at least three.
The one in this clip
has a terrible itch. We wonder if G L Wilson's Scratchy has taken a few days holiday. We haven't recognised any individuals from the back garden, so we don't know if they are from the same group, but there isn't a Scratchy visiting the back garden.
Some visitors are arriving from the path, some from the direction of the boiler room, so it would seem that it is at least used for the odd nap. When we checked this morning, the straw had been rearranged, and we think we heard a few hedgie snuffles coming from inside.
Meanwhile, at the back... It seemed business as usual, although we haven't really checked all the captures. There has been a bit of activity in 9a since daylight, so it appears that we have at least one lodger there. Unfortunately, we put in so much straw the camera is obscured, and the only means of identifying the presence of a vsitor is by the tremors in the straw. The straw is being rearranged gradually, so eventually we may be able to see them again. From a quick scan of the triggers overnight we think there are more than one hedgehogs in 9a at the moment.
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My hedgehogs were all late in putting in an appearance last night. None turned up until abut 10:30 or so. I had been getting worried until then.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately the battery in the infrared camera (I only have one) cut out and I wasn't able to get any footage when they did arrive. I think there may have been four together at one point.
Might have to pick your brains some time about camera traps - I'd like to have some more to capture footage from different angles, and also some of the hogs, like Scratchy, have other favourite places in the garden.
Getting more cameras might be a project for next year though. Perhaps when I've got some more money to spend. (When I've got a job perhaps. I was made redundant at the end of May. I went for a job interview yesterday but I didn't get a good vibe about it.)
It's amazing how attached you get to the little chaps, if they are late or one of the regulars is missing you start to wonder what has happened to them.
ReplyDeleteSeeing several together at once is so nice. You seem to have been very lucky with three feeding together at once - until recently most of ours have been solo visits.
Yes, having several cameras is quite a luxury. The cameras are not so expensive, it's the recorders. We have more cameras than recording channels and swap them round - all our cameras are wired, so they are mains powered. You should see the pile of wires! As you can see the quality is not so good as the recorders compress the data heavily. That's why I'm experimenting with the low-cost recorder off eBay. We are not so interested in BBC-quality shots (that would be nice, with a BBC-sized budget), but just to see what happens with the hedgies. The recorders we have will start recording on a motion detect, but in a garden setting there are lots of false triggers, so we just have the recorders on 24 hours a day - they overwrite the oldest recording when the disk fills up - but we use the alarm to create a small snapshot which is then stored on the PC. Flicking through the snapshots then lets you see the interesting bit, but you can still miss some details, like the two hedgies coming out of one box.
Sorry to hear about the redundancy. Hope you get good news soon. Job interviews are a real curse.