Nocturnal visitor

Question

Nearly every morning we find fresh droppings in our back garden, on the lawn, from an overnight visitor (see photograph). They are black, hard, have no smell and are approx 2-3 cm long by 1 cm diameter. Depending on length there seems to be about 2 or 3 of these each time. They certainly are not from a cat as testified by my ongoing battle with the neighbourhood moggies. No other mammals seem to be living in our garden but my wife has noticed that the dozens of snails and slugs that were present are now missing. Could our visitor be a hedgehog?

Happy birding

paula · Accepted Answer

I would suggest it was a hedgehog as those deposits, to me, look like they came from a Hog. How exciting! We had the same last year and I know that we had hedgehogs visiting as we caught them in the act! Not much evidence of them this year but hopefully I'll have a webcam set up soon. 
 Just to add.....welcome to the forums Peter :-)

Rockwolf · Answer

Yes! It certainly looks like a hog or two have been paying you a visit!! Good for you! 
 I find the same little 'deposits' in my garden too! :-)

squirrelnutkin · Answer

hi- i agree, am convinced it's hedgehogs - lucky you. i think mine have gone. want to encourage them back - i think i'm just feeding foxes at present. i fed the hedghogs dogfood - don't think you need to use special food from what i saw when they were here.