Spring

Spring has arrived and after a mild winter, the hedgehogs have returned and require feeding up a little to help replace their body fats they have lived off during hibernation, and as it is nearly breeding season, to help their babg hoglets when they are born as both mother and hoglets will need feeding to fatten them up quickly to replenish their body fats, or help them grow quickly.
Only last night did we spot two on the security cameras, and they were beginning their courtship ritual with a view to mating, a delicate affair, which it obviously has to be.

With the lockdown currently in place it is an ideal time to make hedgehog friendly environments and the first is to leave, or create a natural environment for them which is little more than a hedgerow with wild or natural vegetation, followed by providing them with a little supplemental food to encourage them, and a small bowl of water sunk into the ground to provide water. Feeding hedgehogs is apparently misleading as many people put out bread and milk for them and this does them more harm as they are lactose intollerent and bread gives them nothing, hedgehogs live on a high protein diet of insects and garden pests, having lots of slugs means an ideal environment for them as they eat slugs and insects to maintain a high protein diet and spreading a few dedicated wet of dry hedgehog foods around will help them, as will small amounts of dog or cat food as they are a high protein food. If you have some old fruit them putting a little out also helps as they eat fruit and seeds to supplement their main diet.

Hedgehogs often roam around 1.25 miles per night during their foraging and males can travel up to 2 miles per night during the mating season and this means they need access so cutting a few holes into fencing means they can travel naturally and forage, they seem to have no preference to country or urban areas as long as they can roam and forage, and they do build up a mental picture of their environment as humans do, and they tend to follow the same routes every night to forage feeding areas.

Hedgehogs are a gardeners friend as they eat many of the common garden pests which gardeners do not want and these pests are their food supply.

Spring over all is just an abundance of new wild life. We (where I live) put out feed tables for birds to use all year round.

We do get an array of birds from small blue tits to quite large pigeons & black birds.

We have blue tits, grey tits, coal tits, willow tits, long tailed tits which look like lollipops with their long tails and little round bodies; declines in sparrow numbers? we have at least 40 just in one piece of hedge, blackbirds, thrushes, ring neck doves, woodpeckers, chaffinches and many more.Currently have an owl I rescued from some fruit netting and she bought her young last year as she comes to me almost nightly and often sits outside my office window unless I open the window and she comes in and sits with me.

I had a tame blackbird I rescued after she flew into something and I picked her up and covered her head with cold wet cloths and when she came round I put her in an old nest and fed her daily, she was a hooligan; cats chase birds don't they? she used to wait on hedges for the cats and dive on them. As they ran she chased them and it was hilarious to watch, if my 4X4 sunroof was open she came into the car through it and travelled miles in the car sat in the hollow headrest, I could call her in the morning and she came in and sat on the kitchen table and I used to put a little bowl out with a dozen corn flakes in water and she had them for breakfast. She loved the tractor as it had an angled dashboard and she sat on the open roof and came in, she got onto the steering wheel and hopped onto the dashboard and loved having a good all round view; we lost her in the bad winter when the weather got her.

Sometimes all you have to do is nothing but sit out with a cup of coffee and listen and watch.

Assassin,

Thanks for the peaceful thoughts of tranquility.

LS

LionsShare wrote:Assassin, Thanks for the peaceful thoughts of tranquility LS

agreed!

Been even nicer tonight after a couple of very busy days, got home and my other half heard the lorry and put the kettle on and we sat by the pond on a nice evening and had a drink. She did dinner earlier and we sat up there and tried to eat it, no chance as Oddbeak (domestic cross Greylag goose) decided he wanted to sit with me and help me with my dinner, the swans were trying to help my other half with hers and the smaller ducks were looking for anything dropping. She had already cooked 2 dozen baked potatoes, green beans, cauliflower, cabbage, broccolli and brussels for them but I also had leeks and Oddbeak wanted to try them and snatched some from my fork and liked them.

The cheeky b...!

Mrblue2015 wrote:The cheeky b...!

True but funny