Hedgehog highways

Thu 19 May 2022, 19:42

If anyone is leaving food out for hedgehogs, I have two open bags of dry puppy food which you are welcome to take for them as my dog has now moved on to adult food. Animal charities won’t accept open bags and I cannot put it in my garden or my dog will eat it! 

Fri 25 Feb 2022, 10:52

Lovely item on BBC Morning Live today about the Kirtlington Hedgehog Highway.  Some amazing views of hedgehogs using steps and ramps to get from one garden to another.

Sun 20 Jun 2021, 15:44

Eynsham have been busy on the hedgehog highway front as well as Kirtlington

https://www.nature-recovery-network.org/news/hedgehog-highway/

Thank you for some lovely photos of our very own Charlbury Hedgehog Highways, I am collecting for our small gallery on the Crawborough/Pooles Lane Tree on the Playing Close.  Also an amazing Hedgehog Bridge has recently been constructed, a photo of that will be available soon.

The time is now. When our very vulnerable Charlbury Hedgehog community are moving round and trying to meet each other. 

Sat 17 Oct 2020, 12:20

Good article about a local hedgehog highway in today’s paper:

Prickly business: the hedgehog highway that knits a village together

With their miniature ramps, stairs and holes cut into fences and stone walls, the gardens of Kirtlington in Oxfordshire are a haven for wildlife

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/17/prickly-business-hedgehog-highway-knits-a-village-together-kirtlington-oxfordshire-aoe

Mon 3 Aug 2020, 10:25

I now have a couple of small mammal tracking tunnels which are an effective and inexpensive way of picking up hedgehog tracks. I put one down last night, where from scat, we know there was a hedgehog visit a few months ago.  There are footprints of a very small hedgehog. So there is a hoglet about in Woodfield Drive ! If anyone would like to borrow a tracking tunnel let me know. Now is a great time to find out where we  have our precious hedgehogs...:-)  and map them so we can help them. Thanks.

Sat 11 Jul 2020, 23:48

Hey John Partington thank you for joining the Zoom talk and so pleased you enjoyed hearing about Kirtlington's experience of opening up 55 gardens and 16 acres to hedgehogs ! I am just having a hedgehog highway constructed between my garden on Dancers Hill which backs onto Bridgid's on Woodfield Drive -  when it's finished please do come round and celebrate with us !  

Mon 22 Jun 2020, 11:55

Great work everyone---perhaps you would like to link up or get in touch with Hugh Warwick ? He is an ecologist who is Oxford based and is the spokesperson for the British Hedgehog Society. His website is www.hughwarwick.com

If you show interest and/or sign one of his petitions you get an interesting flow of articles and updates etc. relating to hedgehogs and how to help them.

Sat 20 Jun 2020, 08:27

Thank you to Flora for organising such an informative and inspiring Zoom meeting last night!  Now we just need to start putting it into practice in Charlbury.

I'm sure we'll be hearing more about this as time goes by .. and meanwhile to help joined-up thinking (and highways) let's keep in touch with each other about what's being done.  The gardens round here, my own included, are badger-proof and full of tasty hedgehog-treats .. the trouble is that most of them are also hedgehog-proof!

Wed 17 Jun 2020, 09:52

There are still spaces for the Zoom talk on Friday, 'Hedgehogs and what we can do to help them', it's just an hour,  if anyone else would like to join message me here or email me fgregory@dircon.co.uk

Sun 31 May 2020, 09:41 (last edited on Tue 2 Jun 2020, 10:14)

Just flagging this Zoom talk,  'Hedgehogs and what we can do to help them' 

on Friday June 19th. Contact me if you would like to join it.

Tue 10 Mar 2020, 08:42

Good idea, Flora! I’ll message you my mobile number through this website. 

Mon 9 Mar 2020, 20:59

Great thank you Suzy and John !  I think the hedgehogs will be starting to get active soon with the longer days and warmth coming. Could we meet up for a chat,  when might be good for you ? I've a few reports of the lack of sightings of hedgehogs recently, when there used to be quite a few. I am thinking of putting a few notices up in town to ask people to let me know if they see hedgehogs, when and where....I am also interested in other wildlife - frogs, toads, newts etc...

Fri 6 Mar 2020, 21:29

Just curious - has anyone spotted a hedgehog recently in the town? 

Fri 6 Mar 2020, 08:15

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-51756873

Fri 6 Mar 2020, 07:48

And me!

Tue 3 Mar 2020, 20:32

I will, Flora! 

Sun 1 Mar 2020, 21:48

It looks as though perhaps it's time to form a Charlbury Hedgehog Group ! We could come up with a plan of action to find out what hedgehogs we have and to help them.   Anyone like to join ?

Wed 26 Feb 2020, 18:38

Thanks Liz!

Wed 26 Feb 2020, 11:54

Suzy, we were talking of doing this ages ago so this seems like the time to make it happen! Robin is quite handy with a saw for our shared fence, tho' perhaps not the whole of Park Street! Hopefully will also provide a route for frogs and toads.

Tue 25 Feb 2020, 20:06

For all the not-so-practical people, such as me, is there someone who could - for a small fee, perhaps - go round and cut suitable size holes in fences for those of us who’d like to create a hedgehog highway? I’d be happy to co-ordinate a continuous stretch along Park Street if someone with a saw gets in touch via the forum. 

Mon 24 Feb 2020, 12:32

Yes I am interested in a Charlbury community wildlife map showing what we have in the way of hedgehogs, swifts, swallows, house martins etc which people could add to and so we could help them. There is https://www.hedgehogstreet.org  but it's not specific to Charlbury and doesn't endow us with a feeling of hedgehogs being part of OUR community. If we know where they are we can help them, with homes, food and mobility.  The Wildlife Trust has appointed Hedgehog Officers in Ipswich and Solihull to look after the interests of hedgehogs, and I feel perhaps we could do something similar here....

Anyone got a hedgehog ?

Fri 21 Feb 2020, 09:11

https://www.showhouse.co.uk/news/national-housebuilder-becomes-first-to-build-hedgehog-highways/?fbclid=IwAR00al2Jdfc5heGJRLr7yFcFKdx5poew6pftxTmgES43xnXG9KIgbZUOBNs

Wed 19 Feb 2020, 15:59

So let's cut the holes large enough for a hedgehog but too small for a badger. I'm in!

Wed 19 Feb 2020, 15:22 (last edited on Wed 19 Feb 2020, 15:23)

The local badger population in Centenary Wood does not help in your part of Town. I have witnessed the aftermath when hedgehogs have been victims. Unfortunately not a lot can be done to stop this, or the decimation of the Bumblebee population. 

John Harrison 

Wed 19 Feb 2020, 08:43 (last edited on Wed 19 Feb 2020, 09:54)

I would love to make it easier for hedgehogs to roam my garden.  However, I definitely don't want to make it easier for rabbits to come in and eat all the new shoots.  Is there any answer to this dilemma?

Wed 19 Feb 2020, 08:07

Hi John, I too used to have hedgehogs in my garden regularly but sadly don’t see them any more.  And I agree that impenetrable fences are part of the problem.  At the climate change workshop a couple of weeks ago, our group talked about the decline in their numbers and ways of encouraging them back.  Flora Gregory is particularly interested in them and has ideas of mapping them and encouraging everyone to take simple measures to help their numbers recover.  She is going to get in touch with you this weekend. 

Mon 17 Feb 2020, 10:15 (last edited on Mon 17 Feb 2020, 10:29)

Is anyone involved in helping set these up in Charlbury?  I live on the east side of The Slade, which apparently used to be full of hedgehogs.  Now we seem to have no hedgehogs and (therefore) lots of slugs.

A large part of the reason is that everyone's fences seem to be so impenetrable, and so they can't move from garden to garden.  Our garden (we recently moved here) is hedgehog-proof on all four sides!

The idea is simply to cut a neat hole or two in the base of your fence at suitable places.  (Some good examples are here.)  I can supply the little signs shown if you like, and/or help make the hole.

Or is someone else already doing this in Charlbury?  Is the sort of town where there's probably already a society devoted to it.