Hogging the line

Bent-nosed Benji is back. We can’t be sure. His nose isn’t that bent and the trail camera resolution isn’t good enough to show such a tiny twist. A wild hedgehog has returned, however, and we are minded to think it is the one we set free last summer.

In fact, at least two hogs have visited the unspoken feeding station following a gap of a couple of months during which only small amounts of the food we left was removed, perhaps by Monique, the concierge. She’s the mouse we see popping in and out of the entrance, sometimes even when our guest hogs are indoors. We named her after a character played by Angela Richards in the 1970s television series Secret Army, which dramatized the underground operation to return shot-down aircrew to the UK. Monique was the barmaid with benefits, who helped to mastermind the allies escape route via Brussels. She was courageous and quick-witted and perpetually vigilant. Just like our mouse.

We have no way of knowing if free hog one is Benji, and we do not know if free hog two is Chrissy, the female that we fattened earlier last year, but we like to think so. We didn’t capture both our liberated bristle-bearers in one trail camera shot but they looked to be slightly different in size and, conveniently, one sported a prominent patch on the rear. How it acquired that identifier we do not know. It may have brushed against something, or perhaps it was an unwitting keepsake from the hibernaculum (big-sleep nest), maybe a cosmetic smudge from a particularly powdery leaf quilt.

The problem is that one hedgehog looks very much like any other. They vary in size quite markedly according to how much fat they have succeeded in accumulating, or retaining, but other than that their three-to-five thousand spikes not only offer a good degree of combat-avoiding camouflage, but also make an identity parade pretty near pointless.

Why then do we think our principal returnee is Benji? It could be down to wishful thinking on our part. We do at least know that he is a he, because a conveniently vigorous spurt of scratching showed off his not inconsiderable hoghood. The self-grooming is another clue. Plenty of hogs will feel the need to apply a rapidly scouring paw, but of the six we have fostered so far, Benji was the most rigorous in this respect. 

Another under-endowed visitor has shown up. This one was a very suspicious type, sniffing around the café but not going in. Perhaps Monique had a word. Even if we are wrong in our identification, we are glad that two, possibly even three, escapees have remained at liberty in our little pocket of Blighty. 

To add to our delight, we have two other secret urchins in captivity. Berry (a bloke) and Fern (a female) were transferred to our sensitive stalag at the end of November. The former has been happily piling on the hog-pounds (grammes) while the latter went pretty much full torpor from a few days after her arrival until about a week ago. Berry only hibernated for approximately three weeks while Fern remained almost continuously in that state for virtually three months. 

Hedgehogs have a special kind of fat that they use rapidly when they waken from hibernation, and although they drop their body temperature and biological activity very considerably while in deep sleep, that period of starvation results in weight loss. Hence Berry and Fern have swapped waistlines. She is much more active now but we’ll need to fatten her up before she can go down the escape line to hedgerow homeland. 

Berry, on the other paw, has already had his forged passport prepared. The photo i.d. wasn’t a problem. They’re so similar any hogshot will do.

Back garden front line

So it is that even at this sodden time of year – and it has been exceptionally wet of late – the unspoken garden brings us joy. It is impossible, however, to look upon it without being reminded of those who are without a corresponding plot. I don’t mean a garden – I mean a rectangle of safe ground they can call sanctuary. We all need to sleep peacefully. War is the only invulnerability. It never gets killed.

The garden is fraudulent. It is not a haven of peace. It is full of life and riddled with death. Some of our most cherished partisans are supreme snipers. The tits that feast on our bird feeders are expert at eliminating the invertebrates hiding in the bushes. The beloved red-breasted Christmas cover star is lethal. I’ve marvelled at his marksmanship. He’s even taken spiders from inside my Bani-shed in a three second commando dash. 

We feed our guest hogs kitten biscuits, but when they go wild, they go rampantly hunting for fresh meat. They kill indiscriminately, persistently, continuously. If they didn’t, they’d starve.  Nothing exceptional about that. Half of nature works that way.

One lesser-known fact associated with the hedgehog is that it has been used as a symbol by NATO. Though it was never officially adopted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, it was used during the Cold War to suggest how countries in the alliance should defend themselves and each other. Except for scuffles over food and females, hedgehogs are not aggressive, but they do have a highly effective defence mechanism of instantly becoming a ball of spears. They do not run away. They stop and defend. NATO luminaries, including General Eisenhower, cited the hedgehog as an explanation of the role of the coalition.

It saddens me to look upon our – temporary – patch of earth and know that, elsewhere, other potential plots for growing, farming, housing or recreation are being fought over for reasons other than survival. All individuals need boundaries, but borders are imaginary. We are one species.  A country is a concept. A nation is a notion. I know this because I have consulted Conan. Conan the Antiquarian.

Conan the Antiquarian is a woodlouse. He’s chewed things over a lot. He’s been around a hell of a long time; but if Bent-nosed Benji sniffs him out he’ll be gone in a gulp. That is because a woodlouse is not a hedgehog.

Except when in the mood for mating, nurturing young, or competing for food, Hedgehogs keep themselves to themselves. They kill continuously, but they do not kill each other. Their brains are smaller than our trigger fingers, but to my mind, they contain more communal sense than the cabbages in the craniums of many humanoid apes.