You may or may not know that it’s Hedgehog Awareness Week this week (04-10 May), organised by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) so this is my 'hedgeblog’! The aim of the week is to highlight the problems faced by hedgehogs in this country and to let us know what we can do to help them. You may have heard in the media that hedgehogs are not doing very well. Staggeringly, the population looks to have declined by 30% since 2002, based on surveys by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and Peoples Trust for Endangered Species (PTES).
We don’t have any records of them at the reserve but I know they are in the surrounding area. Sadly, I know this because I’ve seen a few that have been killed on the roads and I take the time to report my records to the 2014 Hibernation Survey, run by BHPS and PTES. This is accessed via a great website called Hedgehog Street, where you can find out all sorts of hedgehog related information. You can also report seeing live hedgehogs if you’re lucky enough to see them snuffling about, so it’s not all doom and gloom!
I love hedgehogs and I miss not seeing them about as often as I used to. Excitingly, I think I have identified some hedgehog droppings in my garden so I’ll be reading up on what extra I can do for them out there. Hopefully, you’ll be inspired to do something to help too – in your own garden or by reporting your sightings of hedgehogs. There are many things you can do to give nature (including hedgehogs!) a home so why not take the time to do something, no matter how small.
Hedgehog by Ben Hall (rspb-images.com)
We move from spiky hedgehogs to dragons now – our volunteers were out last Thursday working on ‘Frederick’, our willow dragon out near the dipping pond. Last year a wren decided to nest inside Frederick so we didn't get the chance to do much work on him! This year, all looks to be nest free. The nettles have shot up over the past couple of weeks though so he was having a strim and now just needs the new growth tucking in in places to bulk out the structure. They also finished off the path work near the visitor centre, reclaiming the edges of the track from the grass and moss that had encroached and laying some more limestone dust. It looks nice and tidy out there now and quite refreshed.
Before we started work on Thursday morning we got the chance to peruse the contents of the moth trap, which Katherine had put out the previous evening. Among the catch were quite a few stunning poplar hawk moths, some beautiful dainty muslins and a couple of striking swallow prominents. Chocolate tips were very well represented and there was a lovely poplar kitten. Moths have such great names! Dave got a couple of close-up shots of the last two species.
Photo credit: Dave Rogers – chocolate tip moth
Photo credit: Dave Rogers – poplar kitten moth
Tomorrow we’ll be getting our new fish refuges in places in the reedbeds before the fish arrive next week. Dave and I carried out a trial run this morning in Norfolk Fen reedbed, to see how buoyant the refuges were and how big the weights might need to be to pull them down below the surface. The first thing we saw, on approaching the sluice where we were launching the boat, was a very large pike! It swam off pretty quickly when our shadows passed over it but at least it confirmed our plan that a refuge would be pretty handy in that area to help our smaller fish! Overhead were so many swifts that we couldn’t count them – some low down and some higher up but it was lovely to see so many. A good way to get close up views is to stand just back from Joist Fen Viewpoint on the mound – they zip back and forth between the reedbeds and often fly very near to head height. It’s a good job they’re so agile in the air and able to avoid flying into us, although personally I wouldn’t test them out with any sudden movements!