Unlike for Ruddington’s road traffic at the moment, progress for one of our nocturnal creatures has just been made a little easier thanks to some generous, nature-loving volunteers from a nearby village.
It’s after RUDDINGTON.info teamed up with Wild Things Keyworth this summer to ‘Help Our Hedgehogs’ by creating a hedgehog gap in a deserving Ruddington garden – which would be fitted with an especially carved and decorated ‘Ruddington Hedgehog Highway’ surround, too.
In the end, the group’s founder, Jennifer Manning-Ohren, agreed with carpenter Simon Dunstan, artist Liz Waddell and chief gap-driller Nick Ellerby they’d create and award not just ONE but TWO hedgehog gaps to Ruddington householders who wanted them. The second of these gaps has been installed this week.
The first recipient was Vanessa from the new Wilbur Chase estate, who very much wished to attract hedgehogs to her garden but had yet to see any – probably because they could’t get in! Her ‘highway’ was drilled by Nick through the bottom of her wooden fence, as can be seen below.
“I have been feeding the birds and have loads coming every day for their feed” said Vanessa. “I have put a bird bath up for them. Now the birds are bringing their babies to feed and bath in my garden. I absolutely love wildlife, especially hedgehogs!”
The second recipient was Sarah Robertson from the Churchill Drive estate (pictured top with her children alongside Jennifer and Nick) who already has two ‘resident’ hedgehogs which visit for fresh food and water most evenings. However, her garden also had a solid fence obstructing the creatures’ path.
Jennifer comments: ““We were really pleased to provide these prizes of a ‘gap for hedgehogs’ and surrounds to the families in Ruddington. Vanessa has made an amazing difference to the plain wooded fencing in her garden on a new estate with adding borders of flowers, which look wonderful; water features, bird support, etc, and she is so keen on helping wildlife which was lovely to see.”
Sarah’s family’s fence, pictured below, was rather trickier because it had a concrete gravel board at ground level. But Nick came to Ruddington well-equipped, and so was unfazed!
“We’re delighted to have a hedgehog highway created in our garden fence” says Sarah. “Knowing that we’re helping our hedgehogs in Ruddington to travel further during their search for food at night is a great feeling. Thank you to Jenni and Nick at Wild Things Keyworth for making this happen.”
Jennifer says: “Going forward we would like to see fencers and households opting for pre-drilled hedgehog friendly gravel boards – which do exist. Wild Things Keyworth is retrofitting fences with gaps to help our red-listed hedgehogs move from garden to garden on their mile-a-night journeys which support them getting to their natural environment for food, water, sleeping and nesting spots.”
She adds: “We would love to see Ruddington come together and set up their own volunteer drilling team, and we would be more than happy to help them get started. Ultimately hedgehogs need us to retain and plant more hedgerow but, where there are fences, we just need to remember they need access through. They can’t scale fences like other creatures can!”
You can contact Wild Things Keyworth at wildthingskeyworth@gmail.com and keep up-to-date with the group’s activities via their Facebook page >>HERE<<.
For further tips about how to help hedgehogs you can visit https://www.hedgehogstreet.org
There’s also a current national campaign to raise protections for hedgehogs and make ‘hedgehog highways’ mandatory on new-builds at https://www.change.org/p/help-save-britain-s-hedgehogs-with-hedgehog-highways
