Hedgehog Awareness Week and Chris Packham!
amazing new films being launched this week
Hedgehog Awareness Week is here - well, it was here on Sunday but I spent that day photographing the wedding of two wonderful friends - and I spent Monday editing the photographs … freelance life allows for few weekends or Bank Holidays!!
Just a reminder - I am posting this post to my petition page as well!
This is so exciting … and I have been having to keep it secret for over a month … but the British Hedgehog Preservation Society has launched a series of short films all about the ways we can help hedgehogs.
They are beautiful - stop motion animation by the amazingly talented team at Liquona. And to top that … we managed to get the truly inspiring Chris Packham to do the voiceovers. Here is the first one of The Littlest Hoglet films on Twitter, Facebookand Instagram.
The five films are being launched one a day this week, so you will have to log on to see the rest! And at the end of the week they will all be up on the BHPS Youtube site as well ... they are so good!
It would be fantastic if you could share these films to everyone you know! They are so engaging - such an accessible way to learning of the hazards hedgehogs face and the solutions we can offer.
What are you planning to do to help hedgehogs? Would love to hear what you have in mind, either on here or over at the Hedgehog Highways Facebook Group.
Finally - NO MOW MAY - I know that this is mostly to encourage people to leave plants to enable pollinating insects the chance to do their job. Now this is important for hedgehogs because they can eat the larvae of many of the pollinating insects ... but there is a more direct impact too. Every year, wildlife rehabilitators receive hedgehogs with hideous injuries - caused by our careless gardening.
Some of the worst culprits are the strimmers - they are so very tempting to use to clear around the base of hedgerows … and this is where hedgehogs will spend the day. Remember, hedgehogs have no fight or flight response … so when they hear the noise of the motor they will frown and then roll into a ball, waiting for the threat to disappear.
If you must do some clearing, PLEASE check first.
The BHPS has a scheme running with local councils around the UK where their teams are trained to check … if they can, we have no excuse!
And finally finally - please review Cull of the Wild if you have read it … and enjoyed it!! Thank you.
More Hedgehog Awareness Week information soon ....
The Mower
BY PHILIP LARKIN
The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.
I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:
Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful
Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.
Philip Larkin, "The Mower" from Collected Poems. Copyright © Estate of Philip Larkin. Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber, Ltd.
Source: Collected Poems (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 200
WHEN THE COUNCIL WORKERS CUT THE GRASS THEY USE STRIMMERS AND I DONT THINK THEY ARE BOTHERED ABOUT WILDLIFE, HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT ASKING COUNCILS WHAT THERE POLICY IS?