T he dog went home to her owners shortly after the above encounter, so nocturnal visits to the garden became unecessary for a while. I noticed no further signs of hedgehogs (but am not very observant), nor did it occur to me to look for them. However, come spring it did occur to me that hedgehogs emerging from hibernation might be grateful for a little something, which I set about supplying. Needless to say, whatever I put out in the evening was gone by next morning, but I had no idea who was the beneficiary. Establishing that was the basis for the following pages. The ‘hedgehog food’ in this image was bought as a joke but seems to be manufactured in all seriousness. When offered to hedgehogs, it was spurned by both them and the neighbourhood cats. Placed on a bird table it went in the end, pyots ( Pica pica ) being the prime suspects. What hedgehogs do eat is discussed in more detail HERE but in a nutshell they are carnivores.

S hort of sitting up at night to observe who or what was eating the food I decided a better plan would be to install a trail camera. There's more on that HERE . but the presence of hedgehogs may be established in slightly less high-tech but far more reliable ways other than the photographic. Use your eyes. Once alerted to the signs, the naked eye is more than sufficient to spot their cartes de visite which they scatter liberally wherever and whenever the mood takes them. There is no attempt at disposasl or burying; they leave all that to the staff. In appearance they are remarkably uniform. Nomenclature is somewhat problematic. I think they are not spraints which my Shorter O.E.D. define as “sb. pl. late ME ... The excrement of the otter.” Droppings, dung or fæces might do; stool sounds a bit N.H.S. A strong contender for ‘proper term’ might be fiants , [“the dung of certain animals, e.g. the badger, fox etc” Shorter O.E.D., but whether hedgehogs are ‘certain animals’ or come within the ‘etc’ category is not revealed. But who the hell has heard of fiants ?] What urchin turds are certainly not is ‘poo’, used extensively on the likes of BBC's Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter Watch, whose egregious infantilism must be resisted. Shit is shit and, as pointed out by my Shorter O.E.D., while “not now in decent use” has the merit of being Old English. ‘Poo’ is not in my Shorter O.E.D. [1936] at all and is strictly for the nursery and B.B.C. Call a spade a spade; shit is shit, not poo. Either way, hurcheons don't give a fiant.