Catching Up

We both had busy days yesterday (Friday) and didn't have time to check through the videos from Thursday night, but we are trying to keep a diary of the activity of the various hedgehogs who visit us, so here's a late summary of the (in)activity for Thursday night/Friday morning.

After a long dry spell (we only had 1mm of rain in the whole of September) this week turned cold and wet. The weather really does seem to affect the hedgehogs' behaviour, and we have been having trouble sorting out what has been happening.

Nightshift got up much later than usual the previous night, left the garden and didn't come back. This would have caused us major concern a while ago, but since this has happened several times recently, we were not so worried - except that we didn't see any sign of her at all this evening and so she is having a second awayday.

The last time she was away for more than one night was when we think she had given birth, and it was several weeks before she returned to the garden full-time. Whilst we would love her to produce another litter, this is very late in the year and the little ones would not have time to grow large enough to survive hibernation, so we hope this is not the case.

Alfie returned to 9b and spent the day there, although he has taken to visiting Indy at the front, and even has a nap in one of the two nest boxes there. We have always found Alfie easy to identify, due to the huge number of marks he has on his back, as well as his behaviour, but we now find it difficult to distinguish between him and Indy. Indy was almost unmarked when he moved into 9f, but he looks very different now. Some of it must be due to the way he goes into the boiler room under the narrowest part of the door opening he can fit through.

We saw Flatmate leave 9a very early and scoot out of the garden, and he didn't return, either. We really need to add some extra protection around 9a, as it has very thin walls and must be much colder than the other nest boxes. 9d stayed with us, but took advantage of Nightshift's absence to move into 9c. We don't know if he just forgets where he lives, or he really prefers 9c, but he has had a number of naps in there.

We did see him go into 9b a couple of nights ago, sniff around the inside of the tunnel, turn round and come out again, as if he'd realised he was in the wrong box.

It looked as if even Indy was having an awayday, as he hadn't returned to either of the nests in 9f, but he finally crept in to 9f (left) just before 7am. He came from behind the tomato plants, so he may have been for a drink and a nibble on the other feeder in front of the front door, but he'd been missing for a couple of hours. He seems to have a really good appetite, and we are topping up the mealworms before we go to bed as he seems to make his mark on them.



So, that brings us up to last night. It's warmed up and was much drier, so let's see what our little friends get up to next.