Beaver and Elvis.

Following a talk to our garden club by a lady from Prickles and Paws, a hedgehog rescue centre in Cornwall, we signed up as a release site for rehabilitated hedgehogs. Our first arrival was in February 2024 and he didn’t seem to hang around for long before disappearing.
Earlier this year, on 19 August, we took in another, named Elvis by the rescue centre, and he seemed to like our place rather more, turning up regularly on my trail cam pictures. By November he was showing up less and when in December we were asked if we had space for another, I checked our hedgehog house, found it looking long abandoned, and said yes to a new arrival. When I checked the trail cam it appeared that Elvis had been gathering leaves from the area around his bespoke house and taking them through the fence into next door’s garden, presumably to build a nest there.

I moved the hedgehog house across to the other side of our garden, along with a second that I’d attempted unsuccessfully to get Elvis to use as a feeding station.

The box with bedding in it, into which Beaver, our new arrival on 12 December, was placed, is tucked under a dense bush of Camellia ‘Debbie’. The other box was left in a path nearby. I set up my trail camera to overlook both, having put some cat food and water into the second box.

Footage from early evening on the 15th saw one of the neighbourhood cats managing to push its way into the feeding box, an impressive feat given the narrow and angled passageway. He came out licking his chops and looking pleased with himself. Within half an hour, Beaver was outside the box but I doubt there was any food left. The following day I modified the box, inserting a piece of board which narrowed the doorway from 12cm to 9cm. It also narrowed the passageway.

I had to wait until the evening of 18th December to get footage of Beaver going into the feeding station. I assume he’d gone in to feed on the 16th and 17th since the kitten food I’d put down for him had gone on both days and there had been no footage of the cat going in or out. I’m thinking I will have to widen the doorway a little at some point to allow a fast growing Beaver to fit through it, but for now all seems to be going along as it should. I have several clips of him going back into his home box which is full of the shredded paper bedding supplied by the rescue centre, so he appears to be sleeping in there by day. I haven’t opened the box by day to check on him so I still haven’t actually seen him in the flesh.

One of the most interesting clips from the camera had both cat and hedgehog in the frame, seemingly all but indifferent to each others presence. It’s as well that cats don’t appear to be a threat to hedgehogs, at least six make regular appearances in front of the camera, including a couple I’ve never seen by day.

I am curious to see whether he continues to feed over the next week or so when much colder weather is forecast. Will he perhaps have a brief hibernation? I’m thinking I will slowly reduce the amount of food I give him, to encourage him to seek out his own from around the garden, acquainting himself with the local area while he does so. I’m wondering what happens if and when he bumps into Elvis. I’m hoping that there are female hedgehogs in the local area, it would be pretty mean to have introduced two males into an area lacking females. What if there’s only one? Will the boys fight over her? I cannot see me getting many answers with just one trail camera watching over them and it would almost certainly take multiple cameras over a much wider area than just our garden to learn much about their behaviour. I will keep watching though, and post an occasional update if and when anything interesting happens.