PRICKLES IN A PICKLE

wildlife Prickles in a pickle

JUDY THOMSON together with her partner Alan, from Stoke Fleming near Dartmouth, manage ‘Prickles in a Pickle’ a home based hedgehog rescue that takes in injured, poorly and underweight hedgehogs for care and release, plus other animals and bird too. Judy tells us more...

TO misquote a well-known film, The week we decided to move in ‘If you build it, they will come’ together brought about an incident certainly applies to us. As with that was to change everything for us many people that fall into wildlife in the future, we did not know this at rescue, we found that it found us the time! This was 12 years ago. rather than the other way around. I was carrying out a spring clean I have always been animal mad of the stables we rented when my and constantly bringing broken shavings fork picked up a nesting feathered or furred souls’ home to be mended. When I arrived home with a Tawny Owl, my Mother uttered the immortal words: “I would have thought you would have grown out of this by now!”, hedgehog and her 4 tiny hoglets. All I knew was that I had to put them immediately back where they came from and leave well alone. Hedgehog mothers do not take kindly to disturbance. I was 31 at the time. I am now in I was concerned that they may my 60th year and my passion for be abandoned and perish, so wildlife and especially hedgehogs, Alan and I kept watch over the has increased rather than situation, from a distance for a diminished. My partner, Alan, comes from good old-fashioned Devon farming stock. His views on some issues have been different to mine but let us just say that some of these couple of days. Our worst fears came to fruition on the second morning when we found distressed hoglets scattered all over the stable ‘peeping’ for mum. We gathered them up, put them back in the nest and rechecked in the evening. views have mellowed in time! His They were all out of the nest knowledge of the countryside and again, cold, and only 2 of them. all the creatures that live within it We sorted through the rest of the knows no bounds. Plus, he is good shavings, like the graded grainers at making various homes, houses, on the flour advert, with the aid and pens. Between us we make a of a head torch but could not find decent team. the other 2. We took them home,

warmed them up and with the aid of a glass ear dropper, some kitten milk, and the will to get them to live, we awoke every 2 hours through the night to feed and toilet them. We learned a lot from these little creatures, Piglet and Roo we called them. They grew up and left home and the rest as they say is history. We had no idea at this point how dire things were for the humble hedgehog. In the 1950s there was an estimated 30million, we are now down to our last 500,000 approximately. A high proportion of this loss has been in the last 2 decades. When you consider that out of every nest of babies, usually between 3 and 6, only 1 will survive to adulthood. They are sexually mature by their second year and in the wild live to about 3 or 4 years if they are lucky. Add to these poor odds the obstacles put in front of them and survival, it is no wonder we have lost so many. Roads, pesticides, herbicides, tiny non interconnecting gardens with no wild areas, garden machinery, modern agricultural practice, badgers, global warming to name only some.

Caught on camera at Sharpham

FOXES, a tawny owl and a hedgehog An important aspect of the project are amongst the creatures caught Sharpham Wild for People is the unawares by hidden cameras on exploration of organic farming Sharpham Estate, around the site of the techniques such as less-intensive grazing, Sharpham Trust’s rewilding project which in order to support biodiversity. began earlier this year. Ambios Ltd already operates Lower The Trust near Totnes was awarded Sharpham Farm, an organic farm on the £177,400 from The National Lottery Sharpham Estate, and has just signed Heritage Fund to make more space for a tenancy to take over a further 50 wildlife and take action for nature in a acres of Sharpham parkland, which three-year project called Sharpham Wild will be restored to parkland and wood for People. pasture (a habitat with trees that would The grant will help in turning the Sharpham Estate organic, re-wilding parts of its historic landscape and helping more people engage with the nature there – from members of the public have characterised Sharpham parkland at the time of its design, in 1762). An additional 137 acres of land has been leased to farmer David Camp for organic conversion. to students of conservation learning to “A key mission for Sharpham is to care use camera traps. for wildlife and enable people to connect “These first pictures of hedgehogs are amazing because as far as we know with our natural world,” said Trust Director Julian Carnell. this is the first record of them being this “Because of this project, almost all the far into the estate for over 20 years.” estate land will be managed organically said Simon Roper, from Ambios Ltd, which has proven benefits for wildlife,” the nature conservation & education he said. organisation which deployed the cameras via its trainees. The project was to include school visits, public events, volunteering & “Although our rewilding project has training opportunities this summer and only just begun it is so encouraging to the pandemic has meant that these get this image of an animal likely to have been postponed. However, the benefit from our future work in restoring Trust hopes to start some of these in nature. Sharing these pictures is a step September, and is pressing ahead with towards connecting people with nature,” other project goals such as introducing he added. livestock, fencing and surveying wildlife.

Ironically, it seems that ‘new build’ estates may hold the key to many wildlife species being able to thrive. Integral bat and Swift boxes, hedgehog highways and built in wildlife corridors are some of the things designers are having to incorporate into their plans. ‘Prickles in a Pickle’ was created to give us a recognisable name. For years we had been just quietly helping hedgehogs and other wildlife, out of our own pockets. As we got busier and busier, we learned more and more by attending courses, networking with other rescues, reading and researching. I am lucky to have a lot of transferrable skills as I am a Registered Nurse, this has helped tremendously. Last year was phenomenal, the number of hedgehogs needing help was increasing day by day and this year we decided to register as a charity. It came to the point that I was literally working to look after the hedgehogs. l You can find Prickles in a Pickle on Facebook.