Hi Hogmeister
I suppose the twiggy bits help to bind the nest together. Mine also had long grasses twined around and also some fresh green vegetation. The hoglet recorded on my cam was very industrious, rushing around very speedily for nearly two hours with only a half hour gap when I didn’t see it in the middle. It was amazing to see how much it managed to carry at a time.
Interesting that there was a scraped out bit in the bottom of your hog house. Some people recommend putting the hogilos on a hard surface, but I put mine on the soil in case they wanted to make a scrape which I had read somewhere they sometimes do. Nice to hear of some evidence of this.
The hoglet is still around. It’s difficult to know whether she is using the box. I keep trying to leave a leaf in the entrance, but she is sometimes seen on the cam going in and then is out and about again later. Unfortunately it is usually very early in the morning so not a time I’m likely to be up to see what’s going on. Since my cat prevention plans have all been foiled, I have been spreading the food a bit thinner and covering it with some strands of long grasses. The hoglet seems to eat the food, but I hoped the cat might think it wasn’t worth bothering. So far, I haven’t seen the cat eating it and there is usually enough left in the morning for a ‘mob’ of starlings to come down to eat the remains.
