Hi guys, thanks for the insight, it’s interesting to hear where hoggys hang out.
We’ve only lived here 3 years this year, last year we noticed we had hoggy visitors they were regular as clockwork from 7pm but the nights were lighter etc.. this year it’s been sporadic so far. This is our first spring watching hogs so wasn’t sure what to expect. Keep putting food and fresh water out but only had a few sightings.
We’ve gradually made the garden more wildlife friendly with different areas, it was a lot of lawn when we moved in, we’ve put in new beds incorporating shrubs and trees, flowers and grasses. This winter we used some old leylandii roots for a hibernaculum, we dug up the soil near an old Apple tree next to the compost bins put in the roots ad hoc and roughly filled it with soil and put some woodland planting through the top to blend it in. We’ve had bees overwintering underground in this area the last couple of years.
Highlights since moving in was a slow worm near the front door! A grass snake in an old compost bin inherited when we moved in (only 1 of each) the hogs, pheasants, woodmice, a sparrowhawk and the wildlife pond (its not very big) we only put it in May last year and the newts bred last year. We wondered if we might get frogspawn this year but no – guess ponds are usually frog or newt ones, we don’t mind either. We were offered spawn and plants from other ponds last year but we wanted to keep it ‘au naturel’ and see what came of its own accord – I would recommend this to anyone, it’s amazing what finds it way into your gardens when you’re not looking. The hedgehogs visited it regularly last year for a drink, so do the squirrels and every bird going from goldfinches to rooks! (We welcome all wildlife except for pigeons, rooks and neighbours cats!!).
We got 3 hedgehog homes but too late for hibernation last winter, we made sure they were in position for early spring. We built a new leaf mould bin and incorporated a potential hoggy home underneath it (an excellent idea copied from a fellow hedgehog champion). You guys have some excellent suggestions.
Having heard how many hoggys are out there it’s good to hear they are living in such diverse habitats, if they can live and breed happily in lots of habitats they stand a much better chance of recovering or at least stabilising their numbers.
I’ll keep putting the food out and wait for my pricklies to pop in, maybe they are being distracted by a harem of prickly ladies nearby ! I haven’t seen any casualties so they are having fun somewhere.
