Young hedgehog in my garden!

[Itsrainingloadshere]

I’m so happy, my new build garden is slowly being turned into a wildlife haven, 18 months in so far, and as well as a regular adult hedgehog who comes every night I have just seen a young hedgehog this evening!

My regular hedgehog had 2 weeks about a month ago when it didn’t come at all and I did wonder if it was a mother having young. Seems it was.

My garden is my therapy after a horrible divorce and seeing wildlife arriving is so lovely.

Fab!

What are you doing for your hedgehogs to encourage them?

If you haven't already done so, put out a shallow bowl of water each day for them to drink, especially during this hot, dry weather.

Lots of water always out for birds and other animals and I have a wildlife pond (tried to upload a pic but the file is too big) and the hedgehog drinks every night from the pond. (Pond has sloping beach area for wildlife to get in and out).

the whole back area of the garden has long grass and I have a hedgehog feeding station as well and feed kitten biscuits for them.

The house builders hadn’t put in the hedgehog holes in fences in the new houses here like they should have done so I got on to them and they’ve recently come and put those in as well.

Lucky you! I've never even seen a hedgehog, except once on holiday in France.

Please post a pic if you can ( photo compressor apps can shrink your photo files)

Well done for being a local hedgehog advocate! Might be worth chatting to your neighbours too, as they might be unaware there are hedgehogs around.

We put 3 bowls of water out and 2 hedgehog feeding stations - an upturned box with an entrance hole accessed by a tunnel to prevent cats taking the food - looked out last night and a cat’s stripy tail was sticking out of the tunnel - looked like a Davy Crockett hat on the grass. We’ve seen at least 3 hedgehogs and hoping for some hoglets.

A while ago I dropped a hedgehog leaflet round to all the neighbours here with a note saying we have them visiting our gardens.

I've been soaking the usual kitten food our hogs usually eat as well as the fresh water nightly, hopefully they can stay hydrated in the hot weather 😊

It's such a privilege when wildlife chooses to visit our gardens, isn't it! We have a wildlife camera and watch their shenanigans every day 😀The nightly hogs go into the two feeding stations and in the morning baby starlings hop in for their breakfast 😍

Couple of pictures. I put the pond in last September so it’s still quite new. Lots of damselflies have found it as well as pond beetles etc. Hedgehogs drink from it as well as birds.

Pond looks really well established already OP. A brilliant resource.

That's a beautiful pond! and what a cute little hedgehog 😍

@Itsrainingloadshere you are a star OP x

Awwwww.

This is the end of my garden, the pond is by the fence.

How beautiful , your garden and your commitment to wildlife

Im very rural and haven't seen a hedgehog for years now - other then the ones beside the road :( But we dont have squirrels here either , think maybe the hawks and buzzards ??

But we have Bats , frogs, toads and Badgers. Occasionally we see a fox, very rare, whereas in London they were everywhere ( had a vixen and her cubs under our shed one year )

We do have a pretty formal garden but we on raised land so we have banks down to the field below us - which we have totally re - wilded which encourages the wildlife - thick undergrowth and bee friendly flowers