April 2011 - Hedgehogs pre-release night!

Friday 1st: The time has come, the bad weather gone and spring is in the air. Tonight at 10:20pm, all three Hedgehogs - Grumpy, Little-Lad and Pinky - are back in the garden. Born last June, we found four baby hedgehogs in the planthouse. Probably two days old and cold to the touch. It appeared that they had either been abandoned or orphaned. We of course took them in and through Mel's perseverance, raised three to adulthood with the fourth unfortunately dying a few days after we took them into the house. They spent the late summer months and early autumn living outside in the garden. But in late November when the freezing weather and the snows came, we moved them back into the house to feed and gain the weight needed to become adults. So now the time is here and they are back in the garden. Here they will stay, probably for three or four weeks before we transfer them to another garden in the countryside where eventually they (we hope) disperse into the wild. The Blackbird nesting just outside the backdoor has today hatched two of the three eggs. Two tiny and helpless chicks are being fed by both male and female Blackbird.