Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.
The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.
Unlike some of our competitors we are not going to try and blackmail you into donating by saying that we won't continue if you don't. That would just be vulgar, but our lives, and those of the animals which we look after, would be a damn sight easier if we receive more donations to our fighting fund. Donate via Paypal today...
I get a gloriously disparate collection of photographs sent to me by various members of the CFZ family. These were sent by John and Dawn of the Haunted Skies Project and show a baby hedgehog showing a very unhoglike preference in foodstuffs. The photographs were taken at Exhall, Warwickshire, near a cricket club known locally as 'Titties Hill' (This is the real name not a joke). A joke Mr Hanson? Non Comprende Senor...
The other night in Reading Gavin L-W, our tireless newsblogger, told us that he had recently videoed something very strange - hedhehogs mating face to face. This is very rare in nature and there are only a very few species (most notably us) that do it. This would, we believe, be unprecedented. And yes, the video certainly looks like it.
However, he later wrote: 'However, a hedgehog carer, Gill from Newbury, has burst my bubble and tells me that: "The female isn't on her back she's flattened and concaved so it looks like she's up the other way. Many of my female hogs do that to me when I'm trying to give injections. Trying to find skin under the spines is a nightmare." I'm also attaching a photo of the pair afterwards with the female curled up in a ball whilst the male nudges her wanting more (this went on for about two hours), and another photo of hedgehogs mating from earlier in the week (female very definitely not on her back here).'
I have been actively encouraging hedgehogs to my back garden for the last two years. These delightful animals that many take for granted are in decline and are now a protected species here in the UK. I like to think that I am doing my bit for conservation - quite literally in my own back yard. I put out food and water on a nightly basis, and have a hedgehog feeding station where they can eat food in the dry and where cats can't get at it. I usually feed them on dried mealworms (their favourite), unsalted peanuts, sunflower hearts, and "Spike's Dinner" brand hedgehog food, which is very similar to dried cat food. Occasionally, if I can't get Spike's Dinner, I will put down dried cat food. They will also eat tinned cat and dog food (although nothing with fish in it). The biggest rule when feeding hedghogs is never give them bread and milk. Yes, they will eat it, but it is very bad for them especially the milk as they are lactose intolerant. Lately hedgehog visits to my garden have been getting fewer and fewer. There is nothing sinister about this; it is the time of
the year when hedgehogs are beginning to go into hibernation.
On Monday night this week I saw that there was a hedgehog in the feeding station that appeared to be having a whale of a time. It was sitting in a bowl of Spike's Dinner, turning in circles and throwing food in all directions (Hedgehogs are very messy eaters!). It was amusing to watch, but I was more concerned that the hedghog was small enough to sit comfortably in the bowl. I decided to take a closer look and 
went out with a torch and took the lid off the feeding station. Yes, it was indeed a very small hog. I gingerly picked it up (I should have used gardening gloves because those spines are very sharp, but time was of the essence - the hog could run away in the time it'd take me to find the gloves). The hedgehog was so small that it fitted into the palm of my hand. I took it into the house to weigh it on the kitchen scales. It was 300g. What I had here was an "autumn juvenile."
A hedgehog needs to be over 600g to survive hibernation, and this little one was only half that. I decided that this little chap needed a helping hand. I couldn't let it go off to fend for itself as it would almost certainly not survive the winter.
I fetched a cat carrier box from out of the shed, and put the hedgehog into that with some bedding - my cat's blanket and a towel, plus a bowl of food and water, and kept it in overnight. It seemed happy enough. It would sleep for a while and then wake up and eat - every now and again I would hear it munching mealworms.
In the morning, having checked the hedgehog was still alright (it was a bit smelly, it has to be said), I telephoned Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital in Buckinghamshire. The receptionist confirmed that I had done the right thing and the hedgehog would need to be taken in to them.
Thankfully, it wasn't too far a drive. At reception a nurse was called and she fished the hedgehog out of the box and took him/her off to the nursery. I asked what would happen to the hog and was told that they'd try to fatten him/her up but it was unlikely to reach the required weight to survive hibernation, so the most likely scenario was that the little hog would be kept in the hospital for "overwintering" and released in the spring when it was big enough to make its own way in the world. Overwintering basically means that a hedgehog is kept from hibernating by keeping it warm and supplied with food and water. I was pleased that my hog was now in safe hands.
Whilst there I took a look around the visitors centre. Other than at the pond with a large selection of birds - ducks, geese, herons, and even a few juvenile herring gulls - there weren't too many animals to be seen, but of course animals such as foxes, badgers and hedgehogs are nocturnal and would be sleeping. There were windows into the nursery where a nurse could be seen weighing hedgehogs. Some of the autumn juveniles made my hedgehog look big! One of the Tiggywinkles staff offered to show me one of the permanent residents, an adult hedgehog who at some point had suffered a head injury. This hedgehog and others like it will live out their lives in the grounds of Tiggywinkles.
According to their website they currently have over 500 hedgehogs in the hospital and those are only some of the animals that they look after. Each autumn juvenile like the one I took in costs £111.50 to "overwinter." Tiggywinkles are doing exceptional work to support and conserve wildlife, as are other carers around the country, and like many such organisations they operate as a charity, so donations are always welcome. Alternatively, if you are ever in the area, do drop in and have a look around the visitors centre, which also includes the world's first and only hedgehog museum!
Tiggywinkles: http://www.sttiggywinkles.org.uk/
British Hedgehog Preservation Society: http://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/
One of the few good things about the disaster of the weekend is that when I reloaded my back-up files (yes, I do keep back-ups; sadly not enough of them) it returned my emails, desktop etc, to a period just before Christmas last year, and I found this story, sent to me by an acquaintance called Emma.
People at the last Weird Weekend will have noticed a bric-a-brac stall incongrously situated between a bookstall and a specialisr publisher. 
Really Lloyd Wilson, you are a dark horse. You have let us rumble on about hedgehogs (although I am really proud of my clever sister and nephews for managing to breed theirs) without letting on that you have a hedgehog blog par excellence. I would seriously urge anyone who has even the slightest interest in the cutest of our native insectivores to go and have a gander at Gavin's blog. It is marvellous:
This is one of the most peculiar things that I have ever seen. The poor little chap is a hedgehog who, for some reason unknown to all, has lost his spines.
Beth from Hartland Wildlife Rescue sent us this, and it has to be the most ridiculously cute thing that we have seen in ages. 
We have been in contact with Jan for ages, and it is with great pleasure that we welcome her aboard, not only as a guest blogger, but as a Co. Durham representative for the CFZ. With Davy Curtis already at the helm in the country, the two of them will make a dream team par excellence...
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