Caught having a drink after hoovering up tasty biscuits
MY lawn in the morning tells the story of night-time comings and goings.
Scattered here and there are long dark droppings – the work of a certain nocturnal mammal visitor: the hedgehog.
Judging by the number of deposits there are either lots of hedgehogs roaming my garden after dark, or one particularly greedy individual.
I occasionally throw a handful of crunchy hedgehog food on the lawn, and on quiet nights I can hear the crunching sound of it being hoovered up by a grateful prickly diner.
The specially-made food is dry, just like cat biscuits, so any hedgehogs which eat it need a decent supply of fresh water. But there is generally no shortage of rainwater on West Dartmoor and I am also fortunate in having a small stream which runs along one side of the garden.
A couple of nights ago I decided to wander down to have a peer in my pond with a torch, as much aquatic life tends to be more active after dark. There were plenty of palmate newts in the shallows and a couple of great diving beetles patrolling the depths. Then I lifted up my torch and frozen in the beam a couple of metres away on the other side of the pond was a hedgehog which had been having a drink, presumably to wash down all the crunchy hedgehog food it had been snaffling.
It remained motionless, eyes shining bright and looking a decent size and in fine fettle. I moved the torch beam aside and retreated, leaving it in peace.
Last year I came across courting pairs too preoccupied to worry much about torchlight. The behaviour appeared to involved the male walking around a smaller female making a huffing sound. Perhaps not the most impressive of displays! And given the main breeding ‘rut’ occurs in May and June, I should hopefully stumble across more such activity soon.
In the meantime I’ll keep on throwing a handful of food on the lawn in the evenings as an early night-time snack to give them a helping hand. Though I can’t help wondering whether with such a tasty handout on offer they might turn their noses up at all the fat slugs on my veg.