My name is Hugh Warwick and I have been studying hedgehogs, on and off, for the last 22 years. I was lured away from ecological research into journalism, and after a stint at the BBC Natural History Unit, I have scraped a living as a freelance, writing, photographing, making radio programmes and films about wildlife, environmental and development issues.
But now a dream has come true - Penguin have commissioned me to write about hedgehogs, about their behaviour and ecology, about the impact that we have on them and they have on us. I will also indulge myself by exploring Schopenhauer's hedgehog's dilemma; hedgehogs want to be close to each other, but if they get too close, they hurt each other with their spines, yet if they are too far apart, they are lonely. This is a remarkably apt metaphor for our relationship with the natural world.
So please, leave me your stories about hedgehogs - anything and everything that has ever interested or surprised you, I want to be able to use real examples to illustrate as many of the points as possible.
Last year we were lucky to be able to witness a pair of hedgehogs 'dancing' around and grunting for several hours in our own back garden (captured in video). They gave up in the end!
This year, tonight, the first warm sunny day we have had in ages, and Harriet came for her tea, swiftly followed by a dancing Horace, who hopped happily up the garden towards her. She insisted on being allowed to eat her cat food, whilst he comtinued to dance around, she then tried to run clear of his affections, but he switched on the turbo and raced after her. Once again the dancing began, a little closer than last years efforts, but we decided not to sit around. About an hour or so later, we went out to see if the romance was still on, and to our amazement and delight, Horace had grown bored with the foreplay and wrestled her in to submission.
We were lucky to be able to witness and capture on camera, the intimate mating of the happy pair!!
We look forward to the patter of tiny prickly feet. How long will this be??
You can always hear a hedgehog approaching as they crash through the hedge and shrubbery bottoms.
This June there was lots of noise as two male hedgehogs pursued a single female. The larger of the two males would turn on the smaller one and push his snout under to try to turn him over.
Once the smaller male had been seen off the female legged it closely followed by the male both running across some gravel clearing into a hedge at the other side of the garden.
On a night different sized hedgehogs often visit constantly on the move looking for creatures to eat.
They climb steps quite well and roll up into a tight ball if approached.
In the spring and early summer a hedgehog is often asleep under a load of shrubbery cuttings in a wooden slatted container with a slatted floor. It is usually left alone until the early summer as hedgehogs often hibernate there so they are left in peace.
This is a nice quiet, dry place and this year when clearing it out in June for burning the dried out cuttings, I raked out a large hedgehog who was rolled up into a ball.
After moving him (he was surprisingly heavy) to a safe place he eventually uncurled and wandered off.
I once came across a hedgehog with its front paws in a shallow container of water and he was jumping his feet up and down snorting excitedly.
There is a tendency these days for people to erect solid fences in their gardens without access for hedgehogs to wander, which is a pity, as hedgehogs are quite amusing souls who help to keep the pests down in the garden free of charge.
this spring we were woken in the night by someone knocking over our bucket used for washing the car! in the morning i discovered the sponge had gone. we also noticed that our empty hedgehog box had signs of a lodger.that evening armed with torches we discovered our box was taken by a hedgehog who had stollen the sponge and put it in the box! we left things as they were and fed her each evening hoping she would stay, later. inthe spring she brought out to show us five babies! which we also fed each evening, they all stayed around till august, and now we still see the odd one,or two, or three, and also get visited by the local church cemetary hedgehogs who now know where they can eat! at times we have had seven hedgehogs coming at one time. they are a joy to watch and hope they come back next year to eat in our all night cafe! jane harris stonegate east sussex.
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Last year we were lucky to be able to witness a pair of hedgehogs 'dancing' around and grunting for several hours in our own back garden (captured in video). They gave up in the end!
This year, tonight, the first warm sunny day we have had in ages, and Harriet came for her tea, swiftly followed by a dancing Horace, who hopped happily up the garden towards her. She insisted on being allowed to eat her cat food, whilst he comtinued to dance around, she then tried to run clear of his affections, but he switched on the turbo and raced after her. Once again the dancing began, a little closer than last years efforts, but we decided not to sit around. About an hour or so later, we went out to see if the romance was still on, and to our amazement and delight, Horace had grown bored with the foreplay and wrestled her in to submission.
We were lucky to be able to witness and capture on camera, the intimate mating of the happy pair!!
We look forward to the patter of tiny prickly feet. How long will this be??
You can always hear a hedgehog approaching as they crash through the hedge and shrubbery bottoms.
This June there was lots of noise as two male hedgehogs pursued a single female. The larger of the two males would turn on the smaller one and push his snout under to try to turn him over.
Once the smaller male had been seen off the female legged it closely followed by the male both running across some gravel clearing into a hedge at the other side of the garden.
On a night different sized hedgehogs often visit constantly on the move looking for creatures to eat.
They climb steps quite well and roll up into a tight ball if approached.
In the spring and early summer a hedgehog is often asleep under a load of shrubbery cuttings in a wooden slatted container with a slatted floor. It is usually left alone until the early summer as hedgehogs often hibernate there so they are left in peace.
This is a nice quiet, dry place and this year when clearing it out in June for burning the dried out cuttings, I raked out a large hedgehog who was rolled up into a ball.
After moving him (he was surprisingly heavy) to a safe place he eventually uncurled and wandered off.
I once came across a hedgehog with its front paws in a shallow container of water and he was jumping his feet up and down snorting excitedly.
There is a tendency these days for people to erect solid fences in their gardens without access for hedgehogs to wander, which is a pity, as hedgehogs are quite amusing souls who help to keep the pests down in the garden free of charge.
this spring we were woken in the night by someone knocking over our bucket used for washing the car! in the morning i discovered the sponge had gone. we also noticed that our empty hedgehog box had signs of a lodger.that evening armed with torches we discovered our box was taken by a hedgehog who had stollen the sponge and put it in the box! we left things as they were and fed her each evening hoping she would stay, later. inthe spring she brought out to show us five babies! which we also fed each evening, they all stayed around till august, and now we still see the odd one,or two, or three, and also get visited by the local church cemetary hedgehogs who now know where they can eat! at times we have had seven hedgehogs coming at one time. they are a joy to watch and hope they come back next year to eat in our all night cafe! jane harris stonegate east sussex.
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