We must help out hedge hog hedgehogs

Make sure they can pass freely through your garden by making a ‘highway’

It’s getting chilly out there, which means it’s almost time for hedgehogs to hibernate. If they can, though, they’ll still be out and about after dark, feeding up on slugs and other invertebrates. Laying on a bit more fat now may make all the difference when the worst of winter arrives.

When they’re foraging for food, hedgehogs will ramble much further than you’d think. Around a mile a night is quite normal.

That means however hedgehog-friendly your garden is, it can only do so much to support a resident hedgehog. We really need hedgehog-friendly neighbourhoods.

Hedgehogs need the freedom to roam free, possibly taking in parks and allotments along the way. But garden to garden mobility is just as important and can reduce the number of risky roads to cross.

Our current preference for more secure, more private gardens creates problems. The sort of fences and walls that householders opt for these days, often present an impenetrable barrier to a questing hedgehog.

Faced with something that must seem as daunting as Hadrian’s Wall, a hedgehog either has to turn back or find an alternative route, and that may involve a highly dangerous road crossing.

Hedgehog Street campaigns to make Britain more hedgehog-friendly. It would like to see more of what it calls ‘Hedgehog Highways’ – neighbourhoods where there’s no hindrance for hogs as they come and go from garden to garden.

Getting involved only involves a bit of basic DIY. What you need to do is create a hole in, or under, your garden fences.

Hedgehogs are good at squeezing through small spaces, so the hole, or gap, you make only has to be about 13x13cm (5x5in). l Find out more at www.hedgehogstreet.org.