Hedgehogs caught in the act of courting Country Notebook

IT’S not often I get out into the garden after dark, but with plants to protect from slugs on a damp night I do occasionally wander about with a torch picking myriad molluscs off tender leaves in an effort to give my veg and flowers a fighting chance.

Wet west Dartmoor where I live should have a sign up by the roadside saying: Welcome to Slug Country.

At this time of year there are hordes of them gorging on garden delicacies (and in today’s WDP I will be describing my nocturnal search for the world’s largest land slug which lives in ancient West Country woodland).

There were also lots of worms lying on the lawn, which retreated like seaside lugworms into their burrows as I approached. And snails aplenty.

Anyway, I was stooped over a dahlia crowned with a variety of slugs when I heard a hoarse grunting sound coming from beneath the apple tree and turned my torch to see two hedgehogs squaring up to one another.

They were so engaged in their behaviour that they paid no notice of the torchlight, and carried on.

The noisy one was far larger than the other and circled the smaller one a couple of times before they faced each other, then repeated the process making strange huffing sounds.

Was it a territorial dispute or some kind of courtship behaviour?

Well, it turns out it was the latter. According to the informative website Hedgehog Street, hedgehogs are fairly promiscuous and reproduce between April and September, but the period of greatest activity, ‘the rut’, occurs in May and June.

It adds: “Males attempt to woo females in lengthy encounters that involve much circling and rhythmic snorting and puffing. The commotion attracts rival males to the scene and courtship can thus be interrupted as interlopers are confronted and rival males square up to one another; head-butting and chases are not uncommon. So don’t worry if you hear quite the racket coming from