Do you remember your first encounter with a hedgehog? I am not sure I do - there was one on a golf course when I was a kid - but they did not really burst into my life until I started researching them. It would make a much better story to have a Damascene moment, wouldn't it ... but that was not how it started ...

There was a moment of great significance, though, and that was being out radio-tracking in Devon - and having got back to my very cold and damp caravan at around 0400 - I stepped back out to do my teeth and found Nigel just there, looking up at me. He was always the most accommodating of my study animals - and I wrote about what happened next in A Prickly Affair (go on, click the link, maybe buy it! Christmas is coming!) - I ended up nose-to-nose with him on a narrow lane and was utterly transported - at that moment I went from 'liking' too 'loving' hedgehogs! 

I am thrilled that I had a chance to give a very special young person her first encounter - I met Bella Lack at Chris Packham's People's Walk for Wildlife. We are both 'Ministers' - having contributed to the very wonderful Manifesto. She is a brilliant advocate for wildlife and is a reason to have hope for the future ... but ... at 15, and a wildlife love ... she had never met a hedgehog ... so this half term I worked with her and her mother to find time to change that!

My wife (film maker Zoe Broughton) grabbed a brief video of her - and she very kindly (and spontaneously) promoted this petition! What a star she is ...

So now - when was the moment you fell in love with hedgehogs? Did you have a first meeting that transformed your life? Let me know!