Recently we delivered a volunteer made hedgehog house made of recycled wood to residents of Onslow Drive on Lea Park in Thame. They made us welcome in their garden and showed us round.
The garden is neither large nor tiny but it has everything that is needed to encourage hedgehogs and other wildlife leaving plenty of space for the humans that live in the house.
The hedgehogs provide entertainment to the residents who love to watch them drinking from the shallow dish and feasting safely on food provided.
The bird box might just be a little close to the house or the cats might be a little to active for the local birds but hopefully trial and error with that one will secure the right spot for it.
The flower beds are being filled with great pollinating flowers and plenty of cover for the wildlife to move around the garden with some protection.
Two hedgehog holes exist already – one at the bottom of the garden gate and one at the end of the garden out into an alleyway.
The residents are registered with us as Thame Hedgehog Street Champions and are now looking to talk to their neighbours to provide another hedgehog highway hole through to the neighbours garden and help the neighbours learn more about what can be done to increase the biodiversity of their garden too.
During the previous years the residents have helped vulnerable hegehogs. These photos, where the small hedgehogs are being handled, are not of the hedgehogs that are wild in the garden at the moment. These were found in the same garden last year and were out when they should have been asleep and they were underweight. So they were handled carefully into boxes and then taken to a small wildlife rescue in Towersey to be cared for properly and hopefully to gain weight enough to be released back into the wild.
So, as a rule please don’t pick up hedgehogs unless they appear to be in some sort of distress.
Thanks to B P Collins for their wonderful sponsorship of this project 2023.
