Fox Calling and a Hedge-Pig

Right, you might just be able to see a little star there. It looks like a star in the dead of the night sky. That's actually a fox's eye from approximately 275 yards away. It's just turned, so you cannot see it there. There you go, it's back again. It's actually running along. I mean, I can see it from here. As I say, it's about 275 yards away. I think we'll try and get it a bit closer. From there now. There you go, we've got two foxes in front of us here. Now then Foxy Loxy, yes you'd better run away. Right just to show you how close that fox was, that's where it was and there's the fence. I could have hit it with a stick. Hello there Mr or Mrs Hedgehog. I've been rolling about in the muck. Dirty little devil. Look at that. Look at that as a defense mechanism. Absolutely awesome. Just rolls up in a little spiky ball and although that looks extremely fat and quite cumbersome. They can't half-move when they have to, they've got very, very long legs. Just rolls up into a ball like that and the foxes just can't get them. Badgers unfortunately don't have a problem getting them. They just grab a hold of them and just go, just pull them apart. I mentioned the fact that hedgehogs are very, very difficult to get into for foxes. But if a hedgehog's anywhere near water, a fox knows to roll this into the water. As soon as it's rolled into the water, it opens up and the fox can get into it. But whilst it's in this state... Just like a huge, prickly, smelly ball. It's pretty safe from the fox. They normally smell a lot better than that. I don't say they smell nice, but they don't smell repugnant like this one does. I'm going to give my hands a damn good wash. Not only are they normally crawling with fleas, but they do tend to pick up any muck that they roll about in, paddle through when they're out in the fields or in your garden. So, as far as the spines go, they're not the cleanest of creatures. I'm going to leave this fella now and go back in the house. In 5-10 minutes, it'll open up and it'll go about its business again in the garden, looking around for slugs and snails to eat, because they're excellent for eating slugs and snails. They do eat quite a lot of frogs as well, if they can get a hold of them. I actually rescued a frog from a hedgehog a couple of weeks ago, possibly this hedgehog, but for the most part, they eat beetles, worms, slugs and snails. I'll just add... As far as keeping the pests down in your garden goes, hedgehogs are very, very nice creatures. When you get them up on the grouse moor, they tend to absolutely hammer the eggs, so they aren't loved by gamekeepers. They're very, very predatory as far as ground-nesting birds go, but certainly no more than fox or badger. They mostly eat the slugs and snails and little invertebrates that they find lying around. But don't be under any illusions, they will go through ground nesting birds' nests and take the eggs as well, so they're not as innocent as they look.