After taking this snap, the hedgehog quickly ran off with a startling turn of speed into the dense ivy on the border of our small urban patio garden. Since then I’ve watched the hedgehog with my partner from behind the patio doors on his or her nightly visits.
This is a wild animal living in an urban space with all the dangers that entails and is now part of the life in our garden. I’ve learnt from recent survey reports which suggest that hedgehog numbers are in steep decline, and found that today there could be only a million hedgehogs in the UK. Alarmingly, they seem to be declining at the same speed as tigers globally.