This is Horace the Hedgehog. He is currently asleep in his house in a garden in Emersons Green. Horace and the other hedgehogs of the area are under threat. They face real difficulties surviving in our sort of society and may go extinct in the UK within the next decade. Their numbers have already decreased from 36 million in the 1950s to just 500,000 animals today.

That was the message given to us by Sally Pattison at the first meeting of our new wildlife group in January and in response we have invited Yvonne from Hedgehog Rescue to come and talk about their work in the local area.

We shall be meeting at Emersons Green Library at 7.30pm on Wednesday 12th Feb. Please come and join us. 

In a few weeks Horace and the other hedgehogs of the area will emerge and begin their nightly foraging. They  may travel more than 1 km each night and it is vital that they find a welcome. Come and find out what you can do to help them survive. To support Yvonne’s valuable work we ask for a donation of £5 per head.

At the meeting we will also be looking for your ideas about our Festival of Nature this year, which we plan to hold in May. What sort of interests should we be covering? Trees/ Insects/Birds? How would you like to work with our local naturalist, Ed Drewitt? Should we launch some sort of hedgehog campaign in the area?