Hedgehog Awareness Week has just come to an end, organised by The British Hedgehog Preservation Society it ran from 30th April to 6th May and aimed to highlight the problems that our ever dwindling hedgehog population faces in Britain.
One of the objectives highlighted this year was litter, ‘Litter is a problem for all wildlife and while this is (hopefully) not an issue in your own garden, it very likely is in the wider environment. Contacting local landowners where litter is an issue can help; remember to point out the danger to wildlife.’ -TBHPS website.
With this objective in mind as a family we have been more proactive in picking up and disposing of litter where we see it. Sadly we don’t have a garden ourselves but there are some wonderful suggestions on the website of things that you can do to make hedgehogs feel more at home and once we do get a garden we will most certainly be implementing as many as possible.
As an artist I was invited to join South West Puppetry Connection at Plymouth Play Scrap Store to come along and create some hedgehog art from the scraps that they have available. This place is like an Aladdin’s cave of craft supplies and I had no idea what I was going to create so I gathered up a big bag of scraps and took them home. It took a few days for the idea to actually form in my brain and I second guessed myself through the whole process but once I was finished I could not wait to take him back to the scrap store to film some fun.
The process pictures show how he was made from foam, fleece and fabric all gathered from Plymouth Play Scrap Store. The gloves are on old bobbly pair which were more than likely headed to the bin but have now found a new lease of life as protection from hedgehog spikes.
It is best seen as a reel on my Instagram account but we used the little hedgehog puppet to create some videos of him hiding in the barrels of fabric and playing with some of the dried flowers, he also said hello to lots of people as they went about their shopping, this little puppet doesn’t talk but he does like to give a good nod to say hello!
Of course the highlight of his day was meeting Scraggy, a fellow Scrap Store puppet created by the incredibly talented Clare from The Broken Puppet Company.
We had such a wonderful day and I hope that even in some tiny way that my art helped to spread awareness for these wonderful and unique little creatures because they do need our help as much as we can give it. Please check out the website for The British Hedgehog Preservation Society and see if there are any small changes that you could make too.
Thank you for reading my blog,
If you have any name suggestions for my baby hedgehog please let me know!
Samantha x
Moby and Puddle 