This amusing whimsy outside the Broughton Delicatessen on Barony Street has set us thinking.
Spurtle does not recall ever having seen a hedgehog in the capital.
This may owe something to the height and solidity of the stone walls criss-crossing Edinburgh’s back-greens. Hedgehogs lack the Royal Marine skills necessary to scale such obstacles and invade new areas.
Sadly, these agreeable little creatures are now in serious trouble across Britain. Intensive farming, hedgerow removal, pesticides, road traffic, urbanisation and elastic bands are all thought to have contributed to their decline.
Numbers have dropped from an estimated 30m in the 1950s to around 1.5m in 1995 (only 0.31m of them in Scotland).
The good news for nature-loving but slovenly Broughton residents is that the British Hedgehog Preservation Society believes the nation’s gardens are too tidy. They say a little more vegetative clutter would go a long way towards helping our prickly friends.
They also say that making 13cm-wide holes in our boundaries would help in the quest for food and a mate. This and other unusual dating tips may be found at Hedgehog Street.
Things you didn’t know about hedgehogs
- They eat insects, worms, centipedes, slugs, snails, mice, frogs and snakes, and emit grunting noises whilst looking for them; hence the name.
- They each have around 5,000 spines.
- On any one hedgehog, there are also around 500 specialised hedgehog fleas. These rarely bite humans.
- European hedgehogs hibernate in nests of leaves and grass from about now onwards.
- The word urchin– meaning one of ragged, prickly or hunched appearance – entered the English language around 1300 and derives from the Old North French irechon, meaning a hedgehog. This in turn derives by various twists and turns from the Latin name for the animal: ericius.
- For reasons no-one understands, strong smells – such as cigar butts or recently creosoted wood – drive hedgehogs into an ecstatic, frothing frenzy during which they cover themselves in saliva. The behaviour is known among naturalists as ‘self-anointing’ and also affects some women during episodes of The Great British Bake Off.
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Good question from @BroughtonDeli gets short shrift. But have you ever seen one in Edinburgh? http://www.broughtonspurtle.org.uk/news/tough-times-tiggywinkles …
@theSpurtle @BroughtonDeli no, but have assiduously left clutter for them in garden for 40 years
@theSpurtle @BroughtonDeli Have seen sea hedgehogs in Edinburgh, but no land ones. I imagine the latter is well-suited to carpaccio.
@NewTownFlaneur @BroughtonDeli Eugh. Tiggy-Winkle tartare.
@theSpurtle @BroughtonDeli For best results, serve with purée of slug.
@NewTownFlaneur @BroughtonDeli Double eugh + spontaneous bleuch.