It is always a delight to see our native wild mammals, but they are not always welcome in our gardens. Muntjac, rabbits and mice can often make inroads into our vegetables, whereas rats and moles are not everyone’s cup of tea. Hedgehogs, however, are amongst our best loved mammals, spending their time bumbling around, grunting and whistling, and feeding on snails, slugs, beetles and caterpillars – making them the gardener’s best friend. The best time to see them is on a summer’s evening although they will be around until November, fattening themselves up for the winter. They will then find a nice pile of sticks and dry leaves and hibernate until next March or April when the garden warms up enough.
If you would like to help your local hedgehogs, it is easy to make a hedgehog house in a spare corner of your garden. A pile of sticks will do, or you might like to supply them with more luxurious accommodation. Any square wooden box, around 500mm square and made from untreated exterior plywood will do, with a small entrance (130×130 mm) to keep dogs and cats out. There are plenty of plans available on the internet, or you can buy a ready-made home. 
When you have your box, find a quiet, shady spot, preferably under vegetation or behind a shed, cover the outside with garden trimmings and dry leaves. It may take a while for the hedgehogs to find the house, but they will use it to rest, hibernate and raise their hoglets. We are now fortunate to have two young hoglets in our back garden, regularly coming to the water (NEVER milk) and cat food that we put out for them. Any food you leave out is best placed under a container with a small door to keep the local cats from taking all of the food.
There are plenty of other young mammals around now, but they are usually very difficult to find. We came across a family of Stoats a few weeks ago, with the mother leading a train of young from one field to another. This was quite a rare sighting – I think we have seen four such groups in the last 10 years – but they are an absolute delight to see. They are found on grassland, heaths and in woodlands and can be identified by their distinctive bounding gait, orange-brown body and black-tipped tail.
There are around 100 species of mammal found in the UK, although only around 35 of these are to be seen in Leicestershire. Many of these, in common with other groups of wildlife, have declined dramatically in numbers over the last 50 years. Hedgehog numbers, for instance, are down from around 30 million in the 1950s to less than one million today, with numbers falling by half during the last 20 years. We can all help reduce this decline. The main cause of hedgehog deaths in the garden is the use of slug pellets, ironically removing a potent slug predator. With a little care we can all enjoy these beautiful little animals in our gardens.
It is always a delight to see our native wild mammals, but they are not always welcome in our gardens. Muntjac, rabbits and mice can often make inroads into our vegetables, whereas rats and moles are not everyone’s cup of tea. Hedgehogs, however, are amongst our best loved mammals, spending their time bumbling around, grunting and whistling, and feeding on snails, slugs, beetles and caterpillars – making them the gardener’s best friend. The best time to see them is on a summer’s evening although they will be around until November, fattening themselves up for the winter. They will then find a nice pile of sticks and dry leaves and hibernate until next March or April when the garden warms up enough.
If you would like to help your local hedgehogs, it is easy to make a hedgehog house in a spare corner of your garden. A pile of sticks will do, or you might like to supply them with more luxurious accommodation. Any square wooden box, around 500mm square and made from untreated exterior plywood will do, with a small entrance (130×130 mm) to keep dogs and cats out. There are plenty of plans available on the internet, or you can buy a ready-made home. When you have your box, find a quiet, shady spot, preferably under vegetation or behind a shed, cover the outside with garden trimmings and dry leaves. It may take a while for the hedgehogs to find the house, but they will use it to rest, hibernate and raise their hoglets. We are now fortunate to have two young hoglets in our back garden, regularly coming to the water (NEVER milk) and cat food that we put out for them. Any food you leave out is best placed under a container with a small door to keep the local cats from taking all of the food.
There are plenty of other young mammals around now, but they are usually very difficult to find. We came across a family of Stoats a few weeks ago, with the mother leading a train of young from one field to another. This was quite a rare sighting – I think we have seen four such groups in the last 10 years – but they are an absolute delight to see. They are found on grassland, heaths and in woodlands and can be identified by their distinctive bounding gait, orange-brown body and black-tipped tail.
There are around 100 species of mammal found in the UK, although only around 35 of these are to be seen in Leicestershire. Many of these, in common with other groups of wildlife, have declined dramatically in numbers over the last 50 years. Hedgehog numbers, for instance, are down from around 30 million in the 1950s to less than one million today, with numbers falling by half during the last 20 years. We can all help reduce this decline. The main cause of hedgehog deaths in the garden is the use of slug pellets, ironically removing a potent slug predator. With a little care we can all enjoy these beautiful little animals in our gardens.