Hedgehog

As we were coming home today from Vecmamma's (grandmother's) garden, we noticed on the road ahead of us something, which looked like a big stone. As we got closer to it, the 'stone' began to move and run off from the garden road into the grass. To our great surprise, we found out that it was a hedgehog!

Our mom told us that these ball-like animals root through hedges and other undergrowth in search of the small creatures that compose the bulk of their diet: insects, worms, centipedes, snails, mice, frogs, and snakes. As a hedgehog picks its way through the hedges, you can hear piglike grunts - that's how this animal got the name of the hedgehog.

Local people are always happy to see hedgehogs in their gardens, because they prey on many common garden pests. While on the hunt, they rely upon their senses of hearing and smell because their eyesight is quite weak.

We got the chance to take a closer look at the hedgehog, because it got struck up in front of a freshly set up fence, which, most probably, blocked his way on his usual path of passing through the gardens. He tried really hard to poke his nose through the holes and escape from us, but, of course, unsucessfully.

Hedgehogs have a coat of stiff, sharp spines. When we touched him, we were surprised, how sharp the spines were! The spines themselves were dark gray, but their ends were nearly white. Feeling our fingers on his back, the hedgehog curled up into a prickly ball, hiding all his soft body-parts under the needles. This is how they protect themselves from their enemies - no animal would dare to touch, not even talking about eating, such a needle-ball!

As we were checking out the hedgehog, a lady came up to us and said that she would put him to the side of the fence; otherwise, he might not find his way around on time and some car might run over him. We were very curious to see, how she would pick up this ball of needles. But she knew what she was doing. She placed her upside-open palms under the hedgehog (where his soft body parts were) and picked him up this way - she didn't get hurt by the spines! Hedgehog was a bit nervous in her hands, but as soon as his feet touched the grass and he realized that the troube of the fence was solved, he very briskly dissappeared under the red-currants bush. And that's the last we saw of him...