A happy bunny

Yes, I realise this is a hedgehog – it’s me that’s the happy bunny!

In my blip of 2nd August I mentioned that my next door neighbour had told me she’d seen a hedgehog on a couple of evenings, wandering over towards our garden from hers. We both subsequently bought some hedgehog food, but it was impossible for me to tell who had eaten the food I put out every night and I jokingly suggested to Smithers that maybe we needed to invest in a wildlife camera.

The short version is – I did invest in a wildlife camera! I absolutely love it, and it confirmed my suspicions that it was our local fox who was scoffing the grub. Repeatedly. 

At this point Smithers put his foot down and insisted that we should buy a purpose-built hedgehog feeding station which has chicanes inside (that a hedgehog can easily navigate) to prevent the local foxes (and cats) from getting in and stealing the hedgehog’s food. (Well, maybe Smithers didn’t insist, exactly, but he was certainly very supportive of me doing so!) 

Thus it was that I set the feeding station up two nights ago, with a couple of types of hedgehog food inside. (See extras, which also has a daytime shot of the camera set up.) The first night there was much sniffing around from the fox, and a tabby cat I didn’t recognise, but neither of them could get at the food, however hard the fox tried to push his snout in the little ‘door’. Sadly, though, there were no visits from a hedgehog.

Last night, though, was a triumph. Our hedgehog appeared just after 9.00 pm, and walked all round the feeding station, sniffing. He looked inside one of the two ‘doors’ but pulled his head back and chickened out of actually going inside.

A few minutes later he returned and tried again, and this time he was brave and went in. He didn’t re-appear for twenty minutes! A couple of hours later he came back, and spent another 15 minutes inside, and then he appeared again around 5.00 am. I went out into the garden first thing this morning (in the light rain, in my nightie!) to inspect the bowls and they were completely empty.

No wonder I’m a happy bunny.