hedgehogs v cars

swifts need our help!

When I see a dead hedgehog on the road I always wonder how a driver can run over a hedgehog which must look like a rock on the road.

It happened to me on Saturday night around 11.30pm.

When threatened by a fast approaching car with lights on does a hedgehog
a. roll in to a defensive ball
b. run
c. freeze

Mark

Half-cocked

swifts need our help! wrote: »

When threatened by a fast approaching car with lights on does a hedgehog
a. roll in to a defensive ball
b. run
c. freeze

Mark

I've seen them do all 3, and avoided squashing them each time. As you say, they look like a rock in the road. Either a lot of drivers are blind or deliberately squash hedgehogs:mad:

Mothman

Many road kills are difficult to avoid safely.
Jam on brakes risks being rear ended.
swerve and lose control.

We don't have a lot of blind drivers and I believe the vast bulk would not deliberately squash. Also many vehicles such as lorries have a wide tyre print

I've never seen a live hedgehog...not even on the road!

I did take opportunity with my daughter to look at and pick up a road kill recently. The tip of snout had been run over. Quite a heavy lump and very prickly!! I thought extraordinary creature really.

kildare.17hmr

Sometimes you cannot avoid hitting things on the road and that can include rocks! Dont think there would be many people that would do it intentionally

swifts need our help!

My hedgehog froze

Half-cocked

kildare.17hmr wrote: »

Sometimes you cannot avoid hitting things on the road and that can include rocks! Dont think there would be many people that would do it intentionally

I understand you mightn't see or avoid on a fast stretch of road, but I saw 1 squashed in a car park the other day. And I see them squashed in 50kph areas too, easy to avoid. And judging by the road behaviour of drivers around Dublin, I still maintain a lot of them are blind!:D;)

CJhaughey

It could easily be the case that the first car might miss the hedgehog, and the following car could be unsighted as the first car was over the animal and run over it.
Anything on a road is in peril.

Alun

Mothman wrote: »

I've never seen a live hedgehog...not even on the road!

Wow, that's some admission! I'd have thought you'd have at least one resident hog in your garden personal nature reserve

Mothman

Alun wrote: »

Wow, that's some admission! I'd have thought you'd have at least one resident hog in your garden personal nature reserve

Perhaps too overgrown to see them....

I could just pop over to Half-cocked's abode and have an armchair view, pint in one hand and remote........for curtains in other

littlebug

you can't always swerve to avoid e.g narrow road with car coming the other way. I swerved to avoid a young fox once and hit the other one that I hadn't seen instead

Last year there was a live hedgehog right in the middle of our village... must have crossed a fair bit of concrete to get there. Rolled into a ball when it saw us. My dog was mighty confused They do get quite small when they roll up like that... I can understand how they wouldn't be seen on the road.
I'm told there are occasionally hedgehogs on the green at the back of our estate but I haven't seen any there yet.

Alun

Mothman wrote: »

Perhaps too overgrown to see them....

I could just pop over to Half-cocked's abode and have an armchair view, pint in one hand and remote........for curtains in other

One thing about hedgehogs is that they are very predictable and have fixed routes they take every night, so if there were any you'd see a vague trail of sorts where the grass was slightly flattened. Maybe time to invest in that trail camera you've always promised yourself

8mv

littlebug wrote: »

Last year there was a live hedgehog right in the middle of our village... must have crossed a fair bit of concrete to get there. Rolled into a ball when it saw us. My dog was mighty confused

I saw the same thing only a couiuple of weeks ago while out walking the dog. Hedgehog was busy eating something in the middle of the road and I could see lights approaching. I picked him up and carried him over to the safety of the grass verge. He went about his business. Dog was very interested. I often see them in my back garden and lately I've seen the same fox pass through as well - lovely. AFAIK with the warm weather we should see less activity from hedgehogs from now until October or thereabouts, so less roadkill.

Half-cocked

Alun wrote: »

One thing about hedgehogs is that they are very predictable and have fixed routes they take every night, so if there were any you'd see a vague trail of sorts where the grass was slightly flattened. Maybe time to invest in that trail camera you've always promised yourself

They sure are predictable. Our resident male visits 3 times each night, regular as clockwork.

A trail cam is the way to go, you see all sorts of interesting stuff.

Half-cocked

Mothman wrote: »

I could just pop over to Half-cocked's abode and have an armchair view, pint in one hand and remote........for curtains in other

Any time. But you will have to give a tutorial on micro moth IDing in return!

tipseymcT

sorry for going off topic but can anyone recommend a good trail cam? have hedgehogs,foxes & pinemartins around here at night,would like to see what they get up to at night.

Half-cocked

I bought an Ltl Acorn 6210MC. I haven't used any other trail cams so I can't compare, but it does the job. It won't activate for small slow moving animals at longer ranges (like hedgehogs) but closer up is fine. I've had blackbirds activate it within 20 feet. Picks up foxes much further out. Unless you want to spend big money, the startup time is the main issue. It can take up to 1 second to get going which means a fast moving subject has already been and gone through the sensor field. You end up with quite a bit of video of a foxes tail disappearing stage left or nothing at all! It's great for doing time lapse as well (using software like Windows Moviemaker to turn all the photo's into a video). I think there are some old threads on the Shooting forum about trail cams that might be of interest.

Alun

I think Bushnell cameras are the best but they aren't cheap, £200+ from the UK!

artieanna

This time last year I regularly (in the car) met our local hedgehog on our byroad...he would just curl up and I would have to get outta the car lift him in out of the way and he'd scuttle off about his business.

Have to say was a bit of a pain getting outta the car but I did enjoy meeting him !!

lovely creatures

MidnightQueen

Aww they sure are cool little creatures! I do the same, whenever i see one on the road, i would stop and move the little bugger to the nearest ditch in off the road. Came across a few in my life time. One managed to venture into my old primary school one day.

whyulittle

Dead Hedgehog on the street yesterday, surely one of our regular ones.

Only last week I lifted a live one off the footpath at around 6 in the evening and left it beside some food.

Half-cocked

Nearly trod on one going down to my shed last night, it was under the bird table:)