Tiggywinkle..?

Day 267 #365DaysWild

Hedgehogs were once common.

As a kid, I recall my little Jack Russell terrier having played with a ‘tiggywinkle’ of garden hedgehog and coming into the house thick with fleas. 

We had regular visits from hogs here till 2019. I monitored their poo trail journey around the garden and recorded them on camera. Along with one of our student volunteers I set up hedgehog cafes. Emilia was French and so we opened a classy ‘Cafe du hérisson’. But since then, no single animal seen.

Had they been predated by badgers? Or poisoned by farmland insecticides? Killed on our busier and busier roads? Or another factor?

Deeply troubling how a local extinction can take place..

So perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself..

But this morning there appeared to be hedgehog poo in the meadow.

Straight away, the cafe reopened for business. Special hedgehog food. Cafe secured with bricks on the roof in case badgers of foxes try and help themselves.

And now to wait..