Hedgehogs - Let's help them over the winter

What a friendly little chap, who stayed for over an hour in our garden

I always love it when a subject comes to me...........it makes a real change to the usual searching of the local countryside.

Earlier in the year, this little fella appeared on our lawn here in the Dordogne, France and decided to hang around and strike some poses for me. In fact, it followed me around the garden for over an hour!


As we are now well into Autumn and the leaves are all over the garden, it reminded me of our visitor and in particular, the need to take care when burning bonfires. Now is the time that our prickly friends will be thinking about hibernation and we can all help them out by making hedgehog friendly areas in our gardens.


If you have the room, a log pile makes a great home for hedgehogs and is so easy to make - simply take any old logs and make as large a pile (the bigger the better) as you can in an undisturbed part of your garden. Piles of leaves are always a favourite and if your garden is anything like mine, there are plenty of fallen leaves about this time of year to clear up into a convenient corner. Don't forget your compost heap either, Hedgehogs love to nest in these as they contain an endless supply of insects and worms, but be careful with your fork, when turning them over!




If you do have hedgehogs in your garden, please take care of them by giving them a helping hand. They do a lot of good in our gardens by eating slugs and other pests. If you want to suplement their food, by all means put out specific hedghog food, but DO NOT consider giving milk to hedgehogs, they are lactose intolerant and it will make them very ill.
All images taken with my Nikon D500 and Nikon 70-200 f4 lens.
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