Today’s random act of wildness was something a little different. I’ve delivered a hedgehog SOS to all the houses in my street. I’ve made cards with a picture of one of our visiting hedgehogs on the front. 

Inside is the following wording: 

Hello Neighbours,

Did you know we have hedgehogs visiting our road every evening?

I’m Naomi and I live at number …….. Last summer we noticed a hedgehog in our garden for the first time and since then they’ve been visiting most evenings, with a short gap over the winter when they hibernated. The picture on the front is one of our visitors.

We’re really lucky to have these lovely little creatures in our road, as they’re seriously in decline across the country.

I wondered if you might be able to help them by doing these few simple things?

• Please watch out for hedgehogs when you’re driving at night, they’re surprisingly quick but not fast enough to avoid a car doing 30 miles an hour.
• Make a gap under your fence or gate so that hedgehogs can access your garden– the gap only needs to be small, about the size of a CD case or this card, hedgehogs roam over a large area at night, walking as much as three miles and need access to gardens to feed on your slugs, snails and beetles.

• Leave out a shallow bowl of water for hedgehogs and other wildlife– they get very thirsty in hot weather and dehydration can make them very ill.
• Check overgrown areas before mowing, strimming or digging. This is crucial. When hedgehogs feel in danger, their natural reaction is to freeze and curl up into a ball. This means thousands will die each year as a result of strimming injuries. Please make sure you check for hedgehog nests before gardening. If you do happen to find a sleeping hedgehog, do not move or disturb it. Instead try to work around it.

 Thank you for reading and for helping our hedgehog visitors.

Naomi

There’s also a little hand drawn hedgehog picture 

On the back I’ve directed them to more information about how they can help, and a little something about 30dayswild 

I’ve put a little hedgehog sticker on each envelope and popped them through doors. The cards are the perfect size of a hedgehog hole in a fence so they’ll act as a size guide for anyone who wants to make sure hedgehogs can get in to their garden. 

I love having our hedgehog visitors and I really worry for their long term future, so if this encourages even a couple of my neighbours to do a little random act of wildness for the benefit of the hedgehogs I’ll be delighted. I’m going to share information on the Facebook group for our wider estate too, to try and get the community behind our sniffly little prickly friends.