Page 42 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #04

David and Jackie are certainly enthusiastic bird feeders,
but their garden is not given over to wildness – it works
alongside wildness. The lawn and borders would not look
out of place in any suburban setting. Yes, there are plenty
of birds visiting, but it is not a list of exciting rarities, just
a solid collection of what you would hope for: blackbirds,
starlings roosting in the laurel, pied wagtails, blue, great,
coal and long-tailed tits, a pair of bullfinches, chaffinches,
house martins under the eves in summer and the
occasional flyby of a hungry sparrowhawk.
TELL-TALE SIGNS
Nocturnal mammals are always going to be harder to spot,
yet there are ways of knowing they’re around. “We knew
we had hedgehogs in the garden because of the tell-tale
droppings,” Jackie explains over a cup of tea. ‘But it wasn’t
until we saw one that it really sunk in that we had exciting
visitors. And I thought if I put a bit of food and water out,
maybe they would come back again.”
It was the start of a relationship that has blossomed
over the last 15 years. The hedgehogs did come back,
and they brought their friends. Jackie reckons they saw
nine individuals last summer. “Some have very different
looks. Spike had a dark patch of hair on his forehead
in the shape of a diamond. In the years after he first
appeared, there were other hogs with a similar patch,
so I presume they were related.”
So are Jackie and David kept up all night? Well,
sometimes they seem to be, but the couple rely on
two other techniques for hedgehog spotting. First, the
increasingly popular and wonderfully effective trail Clockwise from him to search the garden and then stop, focused on where a
camera – which is a good job as the activity they record top left: gaps in hedgehog is rumbling through the undergrowth.
peaks at 3–4am. The second is more unusual: Lester, fences allow For most hedgehogs, this is about as bothered as they get;
hedgehogs to
their cat. I am introduced to this feline hedgehog unlike some hedgehog lovers, Jackie and David do not have
move between
whisperer as I settle onto the Sages’ sofa. gardens; this to intervene unless there is a clear problem. Partly this is
I’m deeply suspicious of cats. Being fond of the birds feeder box is common sense, but also Jackie is quite keen not to have her
that visit my garden I discourage them with a a
that visit my garden, I discourage them with designed to life overtaken by becoming the local ‘hedgehog-woman’. It
exclude predators;
water pistol. But Lester, despite the occas ional takes a special sort of person to enjoy being bothered by folk
by putting out
‘accident’, has a valuable wildlife-watchi ing skill. pellets and water who want you to rescue their hedgehog.
Heis fascinated by hedgehogs. All his humans Jackie and David When the Sages do intervene, it’s specifically to help
ning for
have to do is wait on a summer even are helping their hedgehogs out in the day, or any individuals they find
garden visitors. heavily infested with ticks. Again, common sense prevails.
If a burly hog with a tick happens to be passing, the couple
leave it alone, but a youngster carrying a host of ticks is
picked up and given the tweezer treatment. David shows me
David inspects
a hedgehog a photograph of a bowl containing over 50 of the blighters,
caught in his just from a single small hedgehog.
g garden for ticks.
April 2018