Monch update: they’ve visited the bowl multiple times, and there is much munching going on.

Oh blimey. Monch wasn’t big when I first saw them, which was making us worry about them surviving Winter. But thankfully they weren’t tiny tiny.

It’s my morning viewing over the first cuppa of the day :)

Yeah. I noticed quite the difference between lifting them a fortnight ago and lifting them yesterday.

They’ve not put in an appearance yet tonight, which is a break in their pattern. Maybe the cold and the wind is keeping them tucked up for now.

We feel so lucky that our garden is good for them.

The weather here has been very mild, so Monch has had more time to put weight on. They’re getting through about 3 times the normal amount of food, so I think they’ll be ok.

So it looks like we’re going to have a hedgehog hibernating with us this year!

We think they’re an Autumn juvenile (britishhedgehogs.org.uk/autumn…) because they’re smaller than other hedgehogs we’ve seen.

We checked with The British Hedgehog Preservation Society what we should be doing and learnt the hog needed to be over 450g to survive Winter.

Yesterday, with advice from a local wildlife rescue (thanks Debbie Doolittle’s!) we were able to weigh Monch. They’re 526g!

Alt text for video: A night vision camera view beneath a garden shed. There's a shallow bowl to the left

A hedgehog, its eyes glowing in the infrared, wanders into view, and checks the camera out. It's impressive whiskers and little wet nose are clearly visible.

For anyone interested. It's in Norwegian though. Someone saw the solution from his apartment and went outside to solve it.

Part 218 of 200 in historically interesting things to inspire your ttrpg dnd

Ceramic hedgehog dated to the Neolithic period found at the Hamin archaeological site near Shebotu Town in Inner Mongolia, China