Well, if you are a hedgehog, it is reasonable to argue that all days are pretty black ... and that is not just because they are nocturnal ... or, as I hope they now are, hibernating - but black as in bleak ... 

The way we consume - shop, eat, travel - has a massive impact on the ability to hedgehogs to thrive. And with the best will in the world - all the holes in all the fences will not solve the problem if we do not look deeper into the way we live. 

So please, make your hole, join Hedgehog Street - but also consider other things that will help.

The food we eat has to be grown ... if it is grown here the way it is grown can have a dramatic impact on hedgehogs - industrial agriculture demands a removal of 'competitors' - which tend to be the macro-invertebrates that are hedgehog food.

The journeys we take by car are all a threat to hedgehogs - not just from the obvious injury and death by collision, but also by the way busy roads fragment the land, preventing hedgehogs moving.

And while litter may seem trivial, it can have a dramatic impact on all wildlife - I won't post the gruesome photos here.

A few years ago my old friend George Monbiot wrote a piece that really resonates - and I ask you - before shopping on Black Friday - or prepare for Christmas - to have a read of this. 

If you want to help hedgehogs - and have the money to spend on a plastic trinket that might give a passing moment of pleasure to someone before it becomes landfill - consider the work of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society - and offer them what you can. Thank you. 

And thank you to the wonderful artist and designer Stig for letting me use his 'spiky' hedgehog ... maybe we will all have to become a little more prickly in the face of ecosystem degradation ...