Tuesday 14 October 2008

Mrs Tiggywinkle

Mrs Tiggywinkle
If like me you enjoyed reading Beatrix Potter as a child you will remember the character Mrs Tiggywinkle.
Last night I had a face to face meeting with a real Mrs Tiggywinkle.For those who dont know the area where I live it is a semi rural area on the outskirts of a village. Normally I can sleep through any thing and indeed I slept through the hurricane of 1987.
My garage is set back from the house, in fact its nearly in the back garden. The door is one of those metal up and over ones and as the garage is also behind double gates in the driveway I tend to leave the door open during the day. It was about midnight that I awoke to hear a strange metalic clanging kind of sound which I discovered was coming from behind the garage door. My first reaction was to think that as we have many foxes in the area one had become locked in the garage when I closed the door. Imagine my surprise when I opened the door and out scuttled a hedgehog followed by two babys who promptly walked of down the lawn.
Bearing in mind that it is now mid October I hope the two little ones make it through the winter and dont fall fowl of the weather or a predator. I checked the garage out to see if they had been nesting there but there was no sign of it.
It is a sign of climate change that two baby hedgehogs were around in October but I suppose as we did not have a summer this year and its been warm but damp today we may have a mild winter.
Andy

4 comments:

Beth said...

Awww! I bet the babies were cute! I don't think we have hedgehogs here at all. Are they cute, but pesky, like raccoons?

Beth

Dannelle said...

I love Hedgies. Used to have a Dwarf one. Memories of good times, We usedto shop in a children's shoppe called Tiggywinkles too! Dannelle

Sandra said...

Hi Andy, We have our own Tiggywinkle too. It comes in under the fence each evening and feeds on the slugs in the garden. I`ve covered the hedgehog`s entrance with half a broken flowerpot so now he/she has her/his own tunnel. It`s so nice that the slugs are disappearing and I hope my prickly friend will keep up the visits! So does Jake, my labrador, who treats him as a long lost friend...lol!

Love Sandra x

Jeannette said...

I hope those little ones survive as well. I love Hedgies as well although we have not had one around here in years.