Since the nest building was completed on Monday the hedgehog has been staying but not permanently. I’m trying to track the movements from the trail camera.
The Hedgehog has stayed in the house every other daytime following the nest completion. It has stayed on the 22nd, 24th and 26th. It must mean that this hedgehog has at least one other nest site that it is using on alternate days.
My absolute favourite footage from the last days is below.
This was the hedgehog leaving at around 19:00 in the evening so it was still daylight and therefore the video came out in colour. Obviously nearly all my footage of the hedgehogs is taken at night, using infra-red, so only in black and white. It’s really nice to get a colour video.
During the week I’ve seen lots of other hedgehogs in the house entrance. They often enter, some further than others, they sniff around and then they leave. There are lots of these events and generally they happen when the resident hedgehog is not in. But I did see an example of what happens when the occupant is present.
A pretty aggressive defence of the nest.
Typically the males are more aggressive that females and I have seen other clues to make me think that the individual using the house is a male.
I caught this video of the hedgehog house resident arriving at the water dish with two other hedgehogs present. It’s first thought was to give one of the others a bit of a biff.
The other noticeable point is that the resident hedgehog is quite big compared to the others. Therefore it’s probably a mature adult, maybe 2 years old.
Obviously the final tell tale sign for the sex of a hedgehog is to have a look for a penis, which is found half-way up the abdomen. I’m pretty sure that the video below is of ‘my’ hedgehog and a penis seems to be visible.
So I think that it’s a mature adult male that has built a nest in the hedgehog house. It’s a shame that it’s not a female as I think they tend to use the nest sites for longer, their territories are much smaller, and also there might be a possibility of the house being used as a site to raise a litter.
However I may have got the ‘sexing’ of ‘my’ hedgehog wrong, I am not a hedgehog sexing expert by any means, so I’ll keep watching, hoping for more action and clues.
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