First Class Hedgehogs!!

Royal Mail recognition at last!

Well that was a pleasing surprise, to wake up this morning and find my google alerts filled with hedgehog references that were not sonic!!

The Royal Mail have done more than just hedgehogs, though, in this new collection - our spiky friend is set among the garden snail, the buff-tailed bumblebee, the robin and the smooth newt in first class. Second class - well that is where you will find the fox, blackbird, common frog, blue tit and badger … but what have they missed out in this Garden Wildlife collection?

Having that alert is always interesting - it sends me an email notification of mentions of the word ‘hedgehog’ across the internet - because it makes you realise how much hedgehog stuff there is going on - and how little of it is to do with the conservation and ecological study which got this petition up and running in the first place!

But I do not despair - even if more kids are familiar with sonic than they are with the real thing - because it is better to be talked about than not … and surely, some little bits of hedgehog reality must creep into their psyche!!

What do you think?

I met with the folk from Sega a while back - and told them about this video - suggesting that they could add in a bunch of gold rings that the hedgehog ‘collected’ as it walked up the ramp. This is just one example of the amazing work that the Oxfordshire village of Kirtlington has put into making it (probably) the best connected (for hedgehogs at least) community in the UK!

What are the best examples of hedgehog highways you have come across?

The iconography of hedgehogs, though - the way they are represented in art, advertising and so much more - just keeps on giving. A few years ago I wrote a book all about this - and could probably do an update of it that is twice as long!

One I missed out on was an advert for cider - from 1990 - that really would have made the cut had I known - this video is perfect hedgehog revenge material!!!

If you would like to keep in touch with other bits and pieces that fall out of my brain at irregular intervals, let me point you towards photos on Instagram, more thoughtful things on Bluesky, and a reluctant presence still on Twitter.

I know I still have to finish the round up of the European Hedgehog Research Group conference - I bet there are some of you out there waiting on tenterhooks…. So - back soon!