I've been keeping an eye out for our local fox, the one that killed the magpie chick. I've not seen it for a couple of weeks now; maybe it succumbed to the mange.Something is still out there, though. Our untidy neighbours' rubbish bags, left stacked against their wheelie bin, were ripped open the other night, and a plastic meat tray had been carried out into the road and dumped there, looking peculiarly unsightly. I took out my terrifically handy Gerber Multi-Plier
...and picked the tray up and dumped it in the bin, leaving a little pile of meat-soaked cigarette butts in the road. If even Mystery Animal had turned up its nose at these dubious snacks, I sure as heck wasn't taking any chances. I wiped the nose of the pliers in the hedge and returned them to my bag.This morning, at about 3:30, I leaned out of the front window. The sky was deep blue with the first flush of dawn around the edges to the north and east, the air was perfectly still, and the city as silent as it ever gets; the earliest of early birds would not begin singing for another half hour or so. I saw a vaguely rugby-ball shaped thing ambling jauntily across the road. "Rat? -too plump. Vole? -too big. Ha! Hedgehog. I didn't realise they could move so fast." (I didn't actually say anything out loud, I'm not potty. I'm just dramatising my thoughts. Bear with me)
It's been a long time since I last saw a hedgehog wild and free. A very long time indeed, come to think of it. It was up on Mynydd Maen, back in the 70s, when I rescued one from the cattle grid next to my caravan, on two nights running, and fed it bread and milk. I guess the quality of the grub wasn't good enough, and it scarpered after that.
This morning's hedgehog squeezed through the wrought iron gate into next door's garden, and almost immediately there began a sort of sticky munching noise, with some crunching thrown in for good measure. I now know what it sounds like if you eat a snail with your mouth open. And without removing it from the shell first. I once sat opposite Richard while he snaffled a plate of frogs' legs. That was bad enough, even if it was in France. Come to that, I once sat, fastidiously playing with my food, while a Filipino sailor sitting opposite me noisily snaffled a bowl of fish heads. It was OK, in context. I would not like to dine out with this hedgehog, either within or beyond the bounds of the EU.
The munching ended suddenly, and the hedgehog reappeared, trundling across the road again to the next garden, where the noises started up again.
I left it to it.
I haven't seen this year's hedgehogs yet but I've seen the scats in the garden. There were two dead on the main road this week and we slowed down to let one cross.
ReplyDeleteI have a theory that they are suddenly going to evolve and their spikes will puncture car tyres.
And of course, these days, hedgehog watchers will know you shouldn't feed them bread and milk - they can't digest the bread and cows' milk gives them diarrhoea.
ReplyDeleteDog food is best for them apparently.
ReplyDeleteThere used to be family of them in our garden when I was a kid. The babies came out often to be fed on our bread and milk (we didn't know - it was the 70s!)...they were like little shaving brushes :-) And they would fall in the milk dish and mess about in it while Mum and Dad looked on!
Yes they can move quick...they used to remind me of hovercraft - suddenly they'd just lift up a bit off the ground and they'd be off...
Sadly I too haven't seen on for ages. Was just thinking the other day - maybe 10 or 12 years :-(
I thought hedgehog was another name for groundhog, until several years ago I began to see the bristly fellows in cages at street fairs here in Iowa. Hedgehog Days for some, and I will look for them again, but it must be a long day for the nocturnal hedgies.
ReplyDeleteDon't your hedgehogs not know that snails are best turned onto their backs on a grid, barbecued, removed from the shell then served with aioli. Yum, the French do know how do a great BBQ.
ReplyDeleteThanks, it was a bon voyage.
o no, sorry I took so long to reply. I used to think that eating snails was very much something I didn't want to do, which is inconsistent with liking shellfish, but hey. But when I was staying down in the middle of France the local snails in the fields looked quite clean and nice and... still didn't eat any though.
ReplyDeleteApparently there used to be a lot of snail eating in Bristol, as the glass-blowers thought that it was good for their thoughts.
I imagine hedgehog poo is pretty nasty stuff at the best of times; badgers eat lots of slugs and snails, and their poo is very runny. Though at least they sort-of-bury it.
You can't just pick them up and eat them like hedgehogs do. I will post on how French eat snails very soon, shall include pictures to save typing thousands of words.
ReplyDeleteWe had a plague of slugs---a sluggish parade---coming up from the dirt-floored cellar into the kitchen. Perhaps encouraged by food I stored down cellar then. I just kept scooping them up with a container partially filled with salt. After two or three years it passed, and now I never see them in the kitchen (I avoid the cellar).
ReplyDeleteLarry you have lost a source of income, pre packaged snails in shells have sometimes been found to contain slugs! With all the garlic mayonnaise usually eaten with them can you tell the difference?
ReplyDeleteI have now done my post on how to eat a snail if anyone is interested.
When I had a basement kitchen they were forever getting in. There doesn't seem to be any way to get rid of them that isn't a bit disgusting.
ReplyDeleteIsn't a slug basically a homeless snail anyway?- though I would not want to pick one up...
I was anonymously famous for a few seconds when my niece phoned a local radio station which had asked for ideas about how to deal with snails. She told them that I was visiting and being furious that the were eating so much of my sisters salad crop I had gone out with a torch and long painted nails and killed 200 before I stopped counting! Lots of salad for rest of visit.
ReplyDeleteCaroline.
I'd say we spot a hedgehog in our garden every other year, on average. I'm surprised they aren't more common, since (like you say) they can move quickly, they have a good defence system, and their food would seem to be plentiful.
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