Dr Mike Oxgreen
Member
My wife and I have lived in this house for 10 years, and despite being blessed with a decent size garden we have always believed that we didn’t have hedgehogs.
It was back in January that we realised that was wrong. One of our cats suddenly stared intently out of the back window, and on inspection I could just make out a dark shape bumbling its way across the lawn.
So last week I decided to build a hedgehog feeding station using some block paving bricks stacked in a rectangular shape and some concrete paving slabs. I gave it an entrance “hall” with an internal wall to defeat cats or foxes from reaching in, and placed two shallow ceramic bowls inside: one with water, the other with dry cat food.
To my amazement, food was taken on the very first night. But that left the question: what took it? A hedgehog, or a rat?
So this project, which started off costing just a tenner for the bricks (the paving slabs were lying around unused), suddenly got a lot more expensive when I ordered a trail camera to see if I could find out what was taking the food. And, after a few false starts as I experimented with camera settings (and one night where I left the damn memory card out of it), I had my proof...
At first, the visitor walks straight past:
And then returns a minute or so later and enters the feeding station:
And finally, after spending about half an hour inside, it leaves:
It was back in January that we realised that was wrong. One of our cats suddenly stared intently out of the back window, and on inspection I could just make out a dark shape bumbling its way across the lawn.
So last week I decided to build a hedgehog feeding station using some block paving bricks stacked in a rectangular shape and some concrete paving slabs. I gave it an entrance “hall” with an internal wall to defeat cats or foxes from reaching in, and placed two shallow ceramic bowls inside: one with water, the other with dry cat food.
To my amazement, food was taken on the very first night. But that left the question: what took it? A hedgehog, or a rat?
So this project, which started off costing just a tenner for the bricks (the paving slabs were lying around unused), suddenly got a lot more expensive when I ordered a trail camera to see if I could find out what was taking the food. And, after a few false starts as I experimented with camera settings (and one night where I left the damn memory card out of it), I had my proof...
At first, the visitor walks straight past:
And then returns a minute or so later and enters the feeding station:
And finally, after spending about half an hour inside, it leaves: