Walking the plank!
an easy way to help hedgehogs!
I am often asked what the best things we can do to help hedgehogs. Here is one simple thing I do not normally have on my list!
It was actually through the Substack page that I was contacted by Christopher Lawton from Manchester … I was slow to respond as I am still not familiar with all the bits and pieces of the platform … but I got there and was well rewarded!!
Initially he had shared with me a video of a hedgehog pulling leaves into a hedgehog house he had put into his garden.
But then he posted a clip of a hedgehog in his garden using a ramp he had put in place to help the little legs of the hogs up the steps! And this made me realise about the barriers we might inadvertently have in our gardens - but overlook because we are so excited at having overcome the principle obstacle of the fence or wall!
If you can’t see the video there, try this link.
Christopher’s garden is fortunate to back onto allotments - and he told me, ‘Hedgehogs entered our lives by sheer chance - there is a gap in the fence that was created by a Hawthorn tree forcing the posts apart - and voila! A Hedgehog Highway!’
The simple placement of a ramp to enable the hedgehog to move between different parts of the garden is such a reminder of a key lessen I give when presenting the longer courses on hedgehog conservation … ‘think hedgehog’!!
So this is something I give to you - whether you have a garden or park or anywhere hedgehogs might roam, take an imaginative step and look at the patch from a hedgehog’s perspective. What are the obstacles that might confront hedgehog-you??
This is the art of empathy - something we usually reserve for others of our own species. But I think there is a lot to be gained by looking at nature empathically - seeing what problems we have created and imagining solutions!
One of the things I love about the clip is the ghostly appearance of the hedgehog - an artefact of the camera I presume, unless they are evolving some really quite unusual camouflage!
A short one!!! Oh, but yesterday afternoon, my publishers sent me this - The Bookseller magazine has put Cull of the Wild in the top ten paperbacks coming out in May … I am thrilled. Though, if you can’t wait …
I have done exactly the same to help hedgehogs climb a small (approximately 12 inches high) wall to get up onto my culinary herb garden after seeing one struggle, I placed some s rocks against the wall to create some bwrough steps which they began using straight away. Adjacent areas are paved and obviously not favourable to them, so they loved the herb garden, which is a little bit more wild, and fruitful for foraging for invertebrates!❤️🦔
Thanks for sharing Hugh. They are so adorable and those planks are genius. Amazing work 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻