Last Wednesday something unexpected happened during my walk in the amsterdam forest.
On my way back to my bike I noticed something small scurrying between the fallen leaves.
It was a young hedgehog!
It was almost noon, not the time for a young hedgehog to be up and about since they
are nocturnal animals ✨
At first glance it looked okay. It was pulling at a particular large fallen leaf 🍁
Then I noticed several huge blowflies on the little one and knew this wasn't a good sign.
Also it wasn't scared of me at all, I was even able to touch it.
Only when I picked it up to take it to a shelter it put up its prickly spines for a bit. I rolled it in a
totebag I had with me and asked for a box at pancake restaurant Meerzicht which was closeby.
This very nice gentleman provided me with a box with hay 😊
The hedgehog made itself comfortable and I stepped on my bike with the box under my arm.
It was almost an hour by bike to the shelter.
At the shelter they found it was covered in fleas, ticks, blowfly eggs and freshly hatched
maggots!! The maggots were on the little ones eye making attempts to eat it.
As this was the case I was just in time saving the poor little hedgehog. If I hadn't found it and
taken it to the shelter the maggots would have eaten it alive!!
Next day I checked with the shelter if it had survived the night and luckely it had.
I decided that this event deserved two pages in my forestdiary 💗
🍃🍂
