This week has seen a massive increase of hedgehog activity in the garden. It seems like the period of hibernation for several of the local hedgehogs has come to an end.
I track the number of hedgehog sightings every night and the graph below shows that the first peak this year is more or less at the same time as last year but that the level of activity I’ve seen during the last week is much higher.
Over the last week I’ve already seen several hedgehogs in the garden at the same time, my maximum being three. They just don’t know who to fight first!
Generally more than one hedgehog results in this type of aggressive behaviour but sometimes they can just seem to get on, I had a couple in the feed station at least tolerating each other.
But the level of activity I’ve seen this week has been very high.
Now that this local hibernation period is over I’ve also taken a look back at the results I recorded for the Winter, particularly during December and January. During the most recent hibernation I recorded hedgehog activity on 19 nights. That is to say I saw a hedgehog in the garden, breaking it’s hibernation period. I compared this to the previous year when for the same 2 months I only recorded activity on 5 nights.
Hedgehogs are active during the winter even though they spend most of their time dormant, but typically they come out of their Winter nest only every 3 to 10 days.
I think the likely explanation for this is that I had more hedgehogs hibernating near to my garden this Winter. I was seeing different hedgehogs on different nights during December and January.
Having more hedgehogs over-winter nearby would also explain why I’m seeing such a lot of activity during the last week. All these hedgehogs that have been hibernating locally are now coming into the garden, which provides an easily accessible source of food and water.
My favourite hedgehog video of the week though came about after the end of one of the multi hedgehog fights. One pour chap ended up it’s back and had some trouble getting righted.
Sunday 20/02/22
Weather : A big storm passed through this week, wind and rain, otherwise warm springlike weather.
Notes : No real signs of any more hedgehog activity in the garden this week, hibernation is obviously not quite over yet.
Even my regular occasional visitor didn’t come by very often. However he was there in the garden last night, caught on camera using the hedgehog feed station.
Chatou Nature Blog 