Welcome to Wildlife Wednesdays.

Our weekly dive into our beautiful Irish wildlife.

This series is designed to help your family reconnect with Ireland’s unique and wonderful wildlife.

Each week we cover a new animal or bird that appears in the Johnny Magory book series.

Johnny Magory in the Magical Wild
Click here to find out more about our books.

This week we cover the Mute and Whooper Swans at Ballynafagh Lake, Co. Kildare Ireland.

 

 

 

Here’s some key facts to recap:

  • Young hedgehogs are called ‘pups’ or ‘hoglets’
  • The average lifespan is 3 years but they can live up to 10 years.
  • Hedgehogs have poor eyesight but a great sense of smell – so good that they can even smell the scent of an earthworm underground.
  • Hedgehogs can swim but can become trapped in pools and ponds with steep sides.
  • As many as 500 fleas live amongst a hedgehogs’ spines! Hedgehogs can wander for up to 3 km a night in search of food.
  • The Latin for ‘hedgehog’ is Erinaceus which means ‘spiky wall’ .
  • The Irish word for hedgehog is ‘gráinneog’ – meaning ‘horrible one’!
  • Hedgehogs occasionally perform an unusual ritual of ‘self-anointing’. This occurs when they come across a strong or an unfamiliar scent. The hedgehog will lick and bite the source and then form scented frothy saliva which it pastes over its spines with its tongue. Some believe that this ‘anointing’ camouflages the hedgehog with the scent of the area and possibly provides a poison or a source of infection to predators that come into contact with its spines.
  • Apart from the nine species of bat, the hedgehog is the only Irish mammal that undergoes true hibernation usually from October to March.

Visit our FREE Animal Directory here

Check out previous Wildlife Wednesdays here

Follow our Instagram to stay up to date with the latest in our World.

#JohnnyMagory #IrishWildlife #JohnnyMagoryWorld #wildlifeWednesdays