Hedgehog Awareness Week 1-7 May 2016

This is Hedgehog Awareness Week. The British Hedgehog Preservation Society website explains:

Hedgehog Awareness Week is organised by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and takes place every year. It aims to highlight the problems hedgehogs face and how you can help them. 

This year efforts are focused on strimmers and cutting machines – every year we hear of many terrible injuries and deaths caused by garden machinery. BHPS is asking people to check areas carefully before using any machinery. They have produced a sticker to be placed onto machines and are asking councils and tool hire companies to get in touch and request the free stickers for their machines. 

As well as checking areas before cutting there are other things we can do to help too:

• Ensure there is hedgehog access in your garden – a 13cm x 13cm gap in boundary fences and walls.

• Move piles of rubbish to a new site before burning it.

• Ensure netting is kept at a safe height. 

• Check compost heaps before digging the fork in. 

• Stop or reduce the amount of pesticides and poisons used. 

• Cover drains or deep holes. 

• Ensure there is an easy route out of ponds and pools.

I was struck by the Society's address. Dhustone is a former quarrying hamlet on the top of Clee Hill that gives the feeling that it was once more extensive than it is today.

I wandered round it years ago and remember spotting an old shop that had obviously been the post office. (In those days there was a phone box in the alley that ran up the side of it, which helped the identification.)

With the help of Google Street View I can confirm that this shop is now Hedgehog House.