A bit prickly

[Image from Pixabay]

Driving to work one morning last month something moving in the middle of the road caught my eye. With horror I realised that it was an adult hedgehog trying to cross a busy road and I didn't rate its chances of getting across to the other side. There was no way that I could let that happen so without a second thought I pulled up on the double yellow lines and flung open the boot to see what I had in the back to wrap it in. Armed with a big piece of fabric I scooped the rolled hog up and stuck it in the boot just in time as another car flew past.

So there I am with this adult hog as a passenger wondering what I should do with it now....I thought that I had heard that it's not a good sign to see one out during the day, but it seemed quite perky. Quickly I dismissed thoughts of just releasing it across the road or taking is somewhere safer incase it needed medical attention and took it instead to our local vets. With the restrictions still in place you had to ring the practice for a nurse to come out, but on that particular day their phone wasn't working. Thankfully I managed to attract the attention of one who was with another patient. She took my charge from me and I understand that it would be checked over and then taken onto a wildlife hospital. Fingers crossed it made it.

That was the first live hog I've seen in ages and despite having them in our garden years ago there's been no sign of them. However, I have ploughed on and in the last year we have installed the hedgehog house [still empty] and had the hole cut into the bottom of our new fence to give them access. Last night, as is my wont, I was sticky beaking out of bedroom window to see what had triggered our security light. Usually it's Humphrey who derives much feline pleasure from sitting in just the right spot to achieve this....not this time though. I was stunned to see two large hedgehogs truffling around in the borders.....by the time I got downstairs to tell Mr GBT I was so excited that I could hardly get the words out to explain to him what I was blathering on about! In the end it was easier just to show him. They were very chilled and just carried on going about their business. Even TYM had a look. The weirdest thing is that there haven't been any droppings to indicate that they were around, but as you might imagine I am completely thrilled!!

Arilx