I have moved into my shorts … a sure sign that spring is springing - that, alongside the rather obvious eruption of life, means we are in my favourite time of the year! And just to cap it all, the news that MORE hedgehog stamps are on the way for those lucky enough to live in Guernsey!
If you would like to see some photos of spring (I have some bluebell photos that I am really pleased with) - pop over to the Substack version of this piece. You will also be able to leave comments - sharing your springish tales!
When I was a kid - probably around 8 or 9 - my parents took us on holiday to Guernsey in the Channel Islands. I don’t remember much about that - apart from the trip to Herm - I remember the startling white beaches scattered with small cowrie shells.
Little did I know that just a few miles away, on the island of Alderney, a quite delightful thing was unfolding.
In the 1960s three pairs of hedgehogs were taken to the island and kept as pets - and, well, if you have read A Prickly Affair, or Cull of the Wild for that matter, you will be able to anticipate what happened next!
After making their break for freedom they went about doing what hedgehogs do very well on small islands lacking predators or much traffic! A survey in 1993 reckoned there were between 299 and 995 hedgehogs … now that may seem like a VERY wide margin, but I have done this sort of work and understand completely! The survey was repeated in 2008 and the population was estimated to be 1315.
This is all good work done (reported in a paper that is, as far as I can see has no author credited) - but the REALLY fascinating thing is that … 75% were found to be either blonde or almost blonde. Just 25% of the island’s hedgehogs were of ‘normal’ colouring.
I had found that around 30% of the hedgehogs on North Ronaldsay, Orkney … about as far away as you can get from Alderney and still be in the UK … were blonde.
So, what is going on? First up, these are not albino hedgehogs (there is a photo of an albino on the substack version) - these hedgehogs are Leucistic - a condition where there is no, or limited pigment deposited in the fur and spines …. In Albinism there is no pigment at all.
And to celebrate this, Guernsey Post has created a series of six stamps recognising these fantastic animals! I am not a stamp collector … but … I am quite tempted to track down a set of these!
I love how this national love of hedgehogs shows no sign of dissipating … it gives me hope that we still remain, or at least have the potential to be, in love with nature.
In other news … oh, there is so much going on … probably best to grab hold of me on Instagram for pictorial updates …
But - PLEASE - if you can, think about dropping a donation to my local and lovely Oxford City Farm - if you can do it by midday tomorrow (29th April) then the donation is DOUBLED!
And if you are up early on 1st May - tune into something that has been happening for over 500 years, but only since 2002, when my wife started live-streaming it, has it been accessible all over the world - and that is the Magdalen College Choir singing in the May as the sun rises … I will be up on the tower taking photos too!!