I have just received my greatest accolade ... thanks to the author Tom Holland. To be compared to the Lorax is quite something!

But why such a thing? The latest issue of the BBC Wildlife Magazine has just arrived - and I have 10 page feature in it! This is a delight on many levels (earning money is certainly not the least!) - 28 years ago I had my first every paid article appear in the BBC Wildlife Magazine - a feature on ... go on ... have a guess ... yes ... hedgehogs! That was thanks to the amazing editor back then, Roz Kidman Cox - and it is thanks to her that I do what I do - she introduced me to the world of writing and I will never be able to repay her for the faith she had. 

The article is important for less personal reasons too - this is the 10th Birthday of the Hedgehog Street Campaign and it is a chance to celebrate some of the things we have achieved. It was also a chance to look at the work of some other amazing people - Vale Wildlife Hospital, Hedgehog Friendly Town, Hedgehog Friendly Campus, Dylan Allman, Jonathan Houseago and Chris Powles from the Kirtlington Wildlife and Conservation Society. Please drop by their web pages, or twitter feeds or however best you connect with people. Each does so much good to help hedgehogs.

Now that Easter has been and gone and we have collected up the chocolate eggs from the garden that have, if your weather has been anything like mine, both melted and frozen - there is a moment to relish Spring. The willow tree I see from my desk has gone from hinting at green to being well-leaved. The robins have decided to nest in the archway from our patio ... at head height. So walking down the garden has to be done with extra care (and I leave offerings of mealworms on the table as I go). The pigeons have been putting on quite a display ... as we enjoyed my son's 15th birthday around a fire on Friday with a well choreographed sequence of friends popping by (keeping us at 6 or under each round!) - they were shamelessly at it on the neighbours' roof.

For me, though, no hedgehogs. But they are out there - as the Hedgehog Highways Facebook Group is proving - they are courting and fighting and eating and drinking (the hedgehogs, not the people in the group ... though ...) so many people have got trail cameras - and the footage is amazing! One day, maybe, hedgehogs will come back to my garden ... I do miss having them snuffling around. 

Please keep sharing the petition - we are so close to this magical million - and so close to getting to a point where I will be able to meet with Ministers again and try to get our call for hedgehog highways reinforced with legislation. 

Thank you for all that you do x