Pogs Wild Friends

Yesterday Pog had caused a right ruckus in the restaurant, she'd rearranged all the bowls. Too bad the camera trap was elsewhere.

When I was down by Pog's house in the morning, I heard her snoring! X3

Later Martha wood mouse came for her breakfast in the mouse viewer.

And then I made a new friend, the beefly!

Beefly looked a bit poorly, so I wondered if some sugar water would perk it up like it does bees.
It certainly lapped it up! I think it helped a bit.

Good luck beefly!

Hedgehog in the Park

This Easter I helped out with the Easter event at Caldecott Park in Rugby as usual.
We decided to try and make the event a bit more special by dressing up as British wildlife and teaching the kids some cool animal facts as they did the hunt.

Of course I had to be a hedgehog!




Here we are at the start with Fox, Badger and Owl.
I hadn't finished putting all my spines on yet!




And here's Hedgehog doing some educating.
The kids knew plenty already which was great, but I had some super fun facts up my sleeve to get them excited about hedgehogs.
I also corrected a couple of people who still knew of people feeding milk to hedgehogs. ^^"

Despite a cold and slightly rainy day we all had a great time, and loads of people came!
I can't wait till I can next dress up as a hedgehog!

Dinner With Pog

Now I know Pog is back I cracked open a tin of wet chicken dog food for her to enjoy.

I got some fun video of her enjoying it and made a little video of her dining.
Take a look. It's worth watching to see her raise her prickles, and have you ever seen a hedgehog sneeze? Now you can!

How to Hibernate Like a Pro!

My neighbourhood hedgehog, Pog, went into hibernation during a cold snap on 12th November 2015.
Yesterday on the cold, wet blustery night of 7th of April 2016 she woke up!
Being a mild winter most people reported their hedgehogs hibernating late and getting up to feed during their hibernation.
Not Pog, I saw hide nor spine of her till now. I was worried, but it turns out she was just hibernating like a pro! :D

I have had my camera trap trained on the entrance to Pog's house for over a month hoping to capture the moment she shambled into the spring.
Either Pog moved house during the winter, my camera failed, or Pog can teleport because it failed to capture anything! Even my low tech hedgehog detectors (small sticks stuck in the ground in front of her house) hadn't been moved. (ps. I have reason to believe from other encounters that Pog can in fact teleport! She's one sneaky ninja hedgehog! XD)

I had been waiting months to see the food left out for her in the hedgehog restaurant disappear, so yesterday when I saw it had, I was super excited, and then super disappointed to find only a cat on the camera trap.

But it's not just disappearing food and camera traps that can prove a hedgehog has been, there's also poop! A quick look around the garden revealed 3 hedgehog poops, so I was assured of a spikey visitor.

Last night I put the camera in the hedgehog restaurant, and was rewarded with proof of my theory!
Check it out!




I'm super chuffed to see my spikey friend again! X3


There is a chance this isn't Pog, but I'm reasonably certain it is. Here's my evidence.
Pog is always a late visitor, she's a very shy hedgehog so 2:35am is exactly the time I'd expect her to turn up.
There were poops in the entrance and right outside her house. So I think she found room to dodge around the sticks as she exited.
She knew how to find and get into the hedgehog restaurant without needed a mealworm trail to help. My hedgehog restaurant has a switch back entrance to stop cats and it seems like she knew how to get in and was not at all nervous which a new hedgehog might have been.
My camera trap, while brilliant has been known to fail before so it may have failed in detecting her. The fact that it's last capture was 31st March and there was only one capture makes me think it failed. There are mice and cats always around there so it should have captured something else in the 6 days in between.

I'm not sure if Pog stayed in the garden overnight, I've put more low tech hedgehog detectors around Pog's house and the new hedgehog hut, so I hope she's stayed in one of them.

I'm looking forward to what new hedgehoggy things I can learn from Pog this year and going to work on making the garden an even better hedgehog home!

Welcome to Spring Pog!

Martha the Wood Mouse

I love hedgehogs, but I also love other wildlife too!
I'm particularly fond of wood mice and was thrilled when they started visiting the hedgehog restaurant.

I decided to make them their own restaurant right by my window so I could watch them coming to feed from my desk. I call it the Mouse Viewer!

It's worked out better than I ever hoped!

I made a wooden box from scrap plywood and other scrap materials with an opening roof to put food in and one wall made of Perspex to let me see in.




I positioned the box on my windowsill and made a network of tubes, scavenged from a skip, to lead the mice safely to the mouse viewer.



Then I put food in the tubes to encourage the mice to use them.
After 3 days they made it to the mouse viewer and I saw my first visitor.

It was Martha the wood mouse, and she's become a regular at all times of day!

Best of all she doesn't seem to be afraid of me watching her from inside the house. I think the reflections on the glass and Perspex make it hard for her too see me, which means I can get right up close, just inches from her.

The downside of that is that sometimes it's hard for me to see into the box, and it's very difficult to take good photos of her. I'll keep working on that though!

Meanwhile, here's some photos and even a video of Martha in the mouse viewer!






Video:

Hedgehog Huts

In the hope that I get more hedgehog visitors this year, I have been working on some more shelters in case my visitors want to stay over.

Pog's house was built from an old leaky water butt. I only used the bottom half though, so there was plenty left.
I cut the top section in half to make 2 hedgehog huts.




Then I positioned the first hut and banked up some earth round it to keep the drafts out.




Next I got some logs, already nicely rustic looking and put them on top and used them to form a small entrance.
The logs will hopefully help moderate the temperature inside, though it is positioned in a shady spot.

I might add a tunnel to the entrance if the neighbourhood cats show too much interest in it.




Finally I put some hay in to make a nice cosy hog bed. Stunt Pog went in to check it out. I think she approves!



I have enough logs to cover the other hut once I decide where to put it.

Waiting for Pog

As we move into spring I'm waiting anxiously for my first glimpse of Pog, the hedgehog.
I put the wildlife camera on her front door to hopefully capture her first outing of the year, however I captured some footage of an unexpected guest instead! It seems Pog might have a roommate! Tweek the mouse or one of his cousins is seen popping in for a visit.

Today I was taking a tea break at just gone 10am and I saw a flash of brown fur outside in the hedgehog restaurant. It was Martha mouse coming for some snacks! The mice are regular visitors to the hedgehog restaurant, but this is the latest I've ever seen Martha.
It seems she's developed a fondness for mealworms too. Over winter the mice have only taken seed and nuts!.
I hope Pog wakes up soon or she might find her breakfast has been eaten by the mice! XD"

Enjoy the video: