WHERE ARE ALL THE HEDGEHOGS?!?

[Spurdie]

We haven't seen a hedgehog for ages - not even squashed on the road! Where have they all gone? Has anyone else noticed a decline in the number of hedgehogs in their area?

[Doris_Pinks]

Have heard them foraging in my hedges.....seen the evidence of thier toilet habits! ( ) but never seem to see them in person........(reackon they all went across the road to see their "flat" mates!)
I do think they are in decline tho, maybe all the pesticides and slug pellets people use are killing them off ? I remember them as a normal nightly sight.

[Mrs Ava]

Hadn't seen one for years, until on holiday in France and there was one living in the garden of the house we rented.  Something frequents our garden, but am yet to see what.  I know we have foxes and muntjac and probably badgers, but hedgies.....dont know.  

[Debs]

Last year, we had bats flying around the house and hedgehog visitors.. haven't seen either this year

Maybe with all the rain and miserable weather they think Autumn has come early!

Debs

[Pixie]

We have lots of bats flying around they start around dusk - I make my lover stand outside when he is smoking and generally have to drag him back in half an hour later because he loves standing and watching them.

Sam

[sunflower]

I used to have hedghogs but havn`t seen any for about 5 years. I don`t use any slug pellets etc & my neighbours don`t really bother with their gardens so don`t know why they don`t come round  

[Val]

  Hi Spurdie, we had them here a few years ago but haven't noticed any this year, wonder if it was last years dry weather that made them starve or not breed. I thought it was just here, obviously not.

[Spurdie]

Yes Val, I suppose last year must have been very harsh for them. To think that they were offering people £5 for each hedgehog they managed to shoot in the Western Isles. If I remember rightly, they were eating the nesting seabirds' eggs. But if it came to a choice of a decline in the number of seabirds or a decline in the number of hedgehogs, I'd choose hedgehogs every time! I miss Animal Hospital and other rescue programmes for giving hedgehogs airtime. Now we don't see them in the garden OR on the telly!   Bring back the hedgehogs!  

[Val]

I love it when its about British Wildlife. Can't see why they are worrying about seabirds, they are trying to get rid of a lot of them in Brighton I think it was. One of my neighbours had them nesting on her roof last year, she wasn't safe in her own garden, they kept attacking her. I'd have the hedgehogs any day, at least they have a use as well as being cute. We have an abundance of worms in the borders this year, probably the wet, everywhere I dug seemed like hundreds.

[Spurdie]

  Hi Val,
Yes, this year hedgehogs could have raised large families and still have plenty of food left over - plenty of slugs and snails AND worms. Our compost is teeming with worms. It seems to have been a really good year for the butterflies too. However, the number of swifts screeching in the loft has descreased. We usually have 4 pairs breeding under the eaves of the house, but this year only 2 pairs came for their holidays. This year's ones left a few weeks ago, and most of the swallows are away too. The leaves are even changing colour already up here - I've noticed a few red leaves on the wild cherries (geans).

[Val]

 ;DA beautiful Sept. day today, you can just feel the Indian summer in the air.We've tidied up the shed and I can now get in it, cut down next doors Montana that was threatening our garage...it soon grows back but the weight is so heavy.Itching to get rid of the summer baskets they are beginning to look a bit sad. I've got some pansies for the winter, shouldn't have bought them yet, I want to get them in.

[Spurdie]

  Hi, Val
It's been a beautiful day here too. I'm sitting here looking out onto a lovely pink sky. Shepherd's delight! More butterflies out and about today: a peacock, some red admiirals and some tortoiseshells. I can see why they like buddleas - the hot day must have brought out their honey smell. Have you try taking some cuttings of your clematis yet?
I was doing a bit of tidying up and managed to find 16 young leycesteria formosas (himalayan honeysuckles)! I've transferred them all into little pots till they grow a wee bit bigger and then I'm going to use them as an edible hedge for the birds!
I had great fun disposing of my Jerusalem artichokes. I used to grow them as a temporary hedge, but this year they have grown tall and lanky instead of tall and sturdy, and so they are no use as a windbreak. I pulled them all up and they had virtually no "tatties" on the end, so I imagined I was Fatima Whitbread and threw each one over the garden fence in a javelin thrower style. I was so pleased with my technique I am thinking of entering for the Beijing olympics!  

[Joolieeee]

Hi spurdie

We had two hedgehogs visiting us seperately last year.  They are both back and one of them has a baby hedgepig - marvellous!

last year, they didn't seem to hibernate - they came to the garden to scoff all through December/Jan.

Our garden backs onto the allotments, so they come through from there.  We give them special hedgehog food and they come every night to eat.

there is hope....Joolieeee

[Val]

Hi Spurdie, wow glad I'm not your neighbour, don't think I'd fancy ducking the artichoke..no I guess you don't have neighbours just the odd wild cat or two.Perhaps thats where your hogs have gone, weighed down by the zooming 'chokes.

[Spurdie]

  Joolieeee
Lucky you! Wee hedgehogs are SO cute, you could  just cuddle them (if it wasn't for their fleas )
  Val
Don't worry, I picked them all up, put the leaves on the compost heap and the rest in the wheelie bin. I wish we had a special green collection in operation up here. Do you have one beside you? It's a real nuisance having to wait a week between "throwing out sessions". I compost everything that is compostable, but it's no use putting woody stems or big rootballs on the heap.

[Val]

 ;Hi Spurdie, yes we do have a green collection, we are lucky we have the tip about 20 mins away as well, as you say there's some stuff you can't compost, most of the neighbours seem to have a green bin, but theres only so many bins you can have around, what with the paper collection, then normal rubbish, Where does everyone keep them, hubby just takes it to meet jobs worth down the tip.....you know the sort, can't put that in there, is that normal dirt, or earth with weeds,has it got worms in?..Okay so I exaggerate slighty but they do get on my wick at times.

[Spurdie]

Hi Val  
I haven't been able to get near my compost heap since Monday. When I made apple chutney on Sunday the kitchen was overrrun with wasps (you'd have thought that the smell of boiling vinegar would have gassed them all, it made my eyes water when I took a sniff of the pan), so I put the apple parings and cores in a bag and put them in the shed, thinking it was them that was drawing in the wasps. On Monday morning I put the contents of the bag on the compost heap, hoping all the wasps had gone, but not so. The horrible creatures had obviously just hidden around the corner and that evening the garden was swarming with wasps. The ones that come into the house are very bad tempered and never come alone. Our neighbour thinks they are coming to the end of their life cycle, and therefore that's why they are so cantankerous. A number of people have been attacked by them locally and much as I love nature and (most) animals, I wish they would just die in a more dignified manner!  

[Doris_Pinks]

Spurdie, we were making fruit based stuff this weekend, elderberry wine, was a wasp magnet, we lost count at 20! they met a very undignified end with a fly swat, and a lot of arm waving by my OH! Fed em to my fish! They are driving me insane this year, can't enjoy a nice meal outside without them And why is it they have to be literally in your face the whole time?)

[Val]

 ;DHi Spurdie and Doris, its been a bad year for wasps, I haven't noticed a big increase in the garden but others have. My old mum used to say at this time of year get away from the wasps they are dopey..I think she was trying to say they're on their way out, but to tell a child they will soon be brown bread is it bit err not nice ;DA cook as well as gardeners..my pet hate cooking, its up there with ironing, I used to do it when the kids were all small but thankfully not anymore. OH likes to mess around with the pots and pans, so leave it to him.

[Spurdie]

Hello Doris  
I didn't know that fish ate wasps!!!! I presume they are big, butch fish and not delicate little neon tetras! My mum used to make alot of homemade wine - raspberry, elderberry, elderflower champagne, broom, etc. When Dad retired he took over the home brewing and made disgusting rhubarb wine, which he stored in an old wardrobe in the grain loft. The heat up there must have affected it as it had a hell of a kick!  
Hi Val  
I love cooking but HATE washing up afterwards. Home baked cakes and biscuits never last any time in our house, and the toffee has to be rationed or else it would disappear in minutes! And yes, ironing is the most tedious household chore ever. Whoever first thought of ironing clothes should have been shot!