Hedgehogs nesting in hedgehog house!
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Hi,
I haven’t posted on here for a while mainly because nothing different has really been happening until now.
At the start of August I purchased 2 hedgehog houses, the first one (picture of the house – https://www.google.com/search?q=hedgehog+house&tbm=isch&sxsrf=ALeKk02EYlxLJV_5mIBDo8PSfEQWOc_-zg:1600708967377&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiJoY7L4frrAhWMOcAKHVqFC6UQ_AUI1QIoAQ&biw=1366&bih=625#imgrc=mufmG6dKBCrenM )
I put in a quiet bushy quite messy part of my garden which is across from my driveaway separate from my lawn where I’d actually noticed a pair of hedgehogs living (haven’t seen the actual nest they just leave there in the evening and come back early morning every night so I thought they where probably living behind there) so I thought it would be a good place to put a hedgehog house. I only put a thin layer of straw in the house as I’d read that they like to do their own decorating. I checked every week or so and eventually on the 25th of August I noticed one of the hedgehogs had pushed all of the straw to the back of the house so I thought I aught to leave some material to give the hedgehog a helping hand. So I put a few piles of straw around the garden bed and a pile of leaves outside the hedgehog house. Weeks after this nothing had happened until Sunday the 20th of September 2020 I thought I aught to take a peep inside the house to see if anything was going on as I hadn’t looked in a while. Before I looked inside I noticed that the straw was covered all over the ground and the whole leaf pile which was quite large had all gone as if it was never there. I looked inside and to my surprise the house was filled to the brim with leaves, straw and other nesting materials. I left the house alone immediately as I didn’t want to disturb anything inside. I’m absolutely delighted, I can’t believe how quickly the hedgehog had filled it up and built its nest and I’m happy that the hedgehog appreciated me leaving piles of leaves and straw around. Could this be a hibernating nest?My question is, do you think it would be okay if I left my wildlife camera filming the outside of the entrance over night to see if I could catch any footage of the hedgehog nest building or would that be too risky and disturb the hedgehogs? and also is there anything else I could do to help the hedgehogs along? I have at least 4 Hedgehogs visiting my garden now and I feed them every night.
Hi Emily
That’s brilliant news. Sounds as if it might be a hibernating nest, although they sometimes make ones that they don’t necessarily use – immediately at least. I’m sure the hog was very appreciative of all the leaves, etc. you left. It probably saved it a lot of extra work collecting them.
It would be o.k. if you left the camera aimed at the hog house, as long as you don’t put it too close. If you place it further away, it will give you a wider angle of view, anyway, which might be useful. So you could put it, say, roughly 8 – 10 feet away and that should show any hogs coming and going but not disturb them. I am assuming it is an infra-red camera not white flash light they might not like that so much.
Sounds like you are doing a pretty good job of helping the hogs. But nest making materials are very useful coming up to hibernation. They use an amazing amount. I just rake the leaves off my lawn area onto the borders, and sometimes leave piles of them here and there. A hog once built a nest in a food box here, which conveniently had a camera already positioned opposite it. I had some long ornamenal grasses which I had cut and left a pile round the back of the hog house. It was so funny seeing him going and collecting mouthfuls of the grass – looked like enormously long moustaches!
They like medium sized leaves best. They can be from trees or shrubs. The hog I mentioned used quite a lot of weigela leaves. The grasses were used to weave them all together.
Other than that just try to make your garden as wildlife friendly as you can, and of course always leave water available all day every day.
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