Hedgehogs decorating their sleeping quarters.
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Anyone else come across this? My resident ‘hog regularly rearranges the leaves and rabbit hay that I put in front of her ‘bedroom’, a large upturned plastic flower tub with a hole in one side. I’d expect that to happen as she comes and goes, and needs to freshen up what’s inside the pot, but not so long ago there was a large lump of moss outside the entrance that had been pulled off a piece of stone a couple of feet away, and, more recently, my girlfriend noticed a piece of fern leaf had been neatly bitten off a fern nearby and carefully placed right by the entrance to her sleeping quarters.
This can’t be accidental, the leaf is new, and can’t have just snapped off, and it’s been neatly placed as well.
Is this sort of decoration known ‘hog behaviour?
Personally I think it’s rather sweet!Hedgehogs will take fresh green vegetation into their nests as well as dried leaves, grasses, etc. I was lucky enough to capture some video of a hog building a nest and saw him actually picking some fresh greenery. If a hog is still using the nest and regularly going in and out, I would expect it to replenish the ‘furnishings’ from time to time. I have also heard of hogs taking small amounts of herbs into their nest.
I was also able to see the nest once it was vacated and it was an incredibly intricate structure made of mostly dried (long) grasses woven together with dried leaves. This was a that year’s hoglet – amazing how they just know, how to do that so well.
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