What I learned this week . .

 
Sadly this week’s post is a little bereft because I don’t have a photo of the actual animal concerned to show you, it just never occurred to me at the time to get my camera.
This week I learned, that right here in the middle of a town we do have hedgehogs, because there was one in my garden.
We had just come home from church and youngest (14) went out into the garden and the next thing I hear is him shouting “hedgehog”.  I had to double check what he had said and then went out to investigate.
Sure enough, hiding behind our compost bin was a fairly decent sized hedgehog.  I was a bit concerned about it being out and about in the middle of the day, especially such a hot day.  We decided that since it was in the shade and such a large specimen we would leave it alone and see what happened.
Pretty soon it had disappeared.
Later, on searching the net, I discovered the following:

• Any hedgehog seen out in daylight will need URGENT help
• Hedgehogs do NOT lie out sunbathing
• Any cut or wound is urgent
• Any hedgehog with flies on it or maggots crawling on it needs VERY Urgent help
• Any Hedgehog limping or walking strangely needs help
• Anything that looks very thin or wobbly or has bald patches or missing spines
• If you see a baby hedgehog or any small hedgehog weighing less than about 500 grams, that is about the size of a large orange or small grapefruit, at ANY time, whether day or night, that is out on its own, pick it up, pop it into a box with food and water and contact us or your local rescue centre for help and advice.

However, none of the other websites I looked at said that about ANY hedgehog seen in daylight, and this one was definitely not underweight or injured, and so I am not going to worry too much. He’s disappeared now, and we only have a tiny garden (yard) with nowhere for it to hide.  My guess is it’s nesting somewhere near by and had been disturbed.
I also think the hedgehog may well have been the mystery intruder into our raised bed for the veggies, rather than one of the neighbours cats.  hmmm, in the absence of a night vision camera, I guess we’ll never know for sure.