Hedgehogs are generally active between April and October, while hibernating the rest of the time.
People stand the best chance of seeing them at dusk or on balmy evenings when they search for food, water and nesting materials.
If you want to encourage hedgehogs to enter your garden, David Attenborough has offered some advice.
David Attenborough’s advice on attracting hedgehogs to your garden
In a clip from his Wild London documentary, the broadcaster described hedgehogs as “rare,” “charming,” and “not very social.”
He said urban areas are the one place where their numbers have stabilised and, with a little help from us, there’s hope that they might even increase.
One of his main tips is to create “hedgehog highways”—small holes in fences that allow the animals to travel between gardens in search of food and shelter.
Attenborough said: “London has more gardens per square mile than any other capital city but, all too often, there’s no way between them.”
Creating a passage is quite simple — just remove a brick from a wall or cut a CD-case-sized opening (roughly 13cm x 13cm) at the base of your wooden fence panels or wire mesh.
While Attenborough was talking about hedgehogs in the context of London’s geography, it is something anyone can do around the UK.
Making these highways on all sides of your garden improves their access to food such as slugs, snails, and beetles, and helps keep them safe as they move through urban areas.
The wildlife expert also talked about a hedgehog featured in his programme, saying: “Hedgehogs can eat up to 100g of food in a night, and that can take quite a lot of collecting.
“But this one has hit the jackpot.
“Every evening, the owner of this garden provides a feast for them.
“Tonight, he’s searching for a mate, and he’ll need all the energy he can find.
“I think they’re lovely things.”
Have you made a ‘hedgehog highway’ in your garden? Let us know in the comments.