Want to win a fantastic Nature Spy wildlife camera? Read on to find out how!!

As always, for more pictures and a chance to comment you need to sign up to the Substack version - FREE - but if you want to and are able, you can pay to subscribe!

You may remember I have mentioned the National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme a few times … and will continue to push it as it is important. Knowing how many hedgehogs there are in an area gives us a baseline to help identify the conservation measures that are needed.

Part of this work requires Citizen Scientists, as there is simply too much data for the team to digest, and AI is not yet reliable enough. We need people, like you, to help - and all it requires is for you to watch clips of wildlife on your screen and spot the hogs!

The competition is simple, the rather lovely camera will be awarded to the spotter who tags the most images before the end of May - all the details can be found HERE.

I should apologise - about not alerting you to this at the start of the month … but it got lost in the wave of Hedgehog Awareness Week. But don’t worry - there are lots of other prizes for top spotters, so if you are joining the month a little late, you could still be in with a chance of a winning something!

Hedgehog Week seemed to run almost straight into the first festival of the season, and I am still recovering!!! Wood Festival has been a firm favourite for many years, and for the last 10 years I have run the Kindling stage - a speakers forum. 

It is a great platform for people to come and talk about ideas that really get them excited - this year there was an AI expert followed by a social anthropologist talking about viruses, for example! I am going to do a write up of the amazing range of people over on Substack - another good reason to go and sign up, you get material you don’t get on here … but for now - a couple of highlights - one was having  Robin Ince back on my stage. I was a fan of his - from his comedy, and in particular The Infinite Monkey Cage, which he does with Professor Brian Cox on BBC Radio 4. If you missed it, here is the episode they recorded all about Hedgehogs … featuring yours truly - truly a highlight of my year that was!

Robin was talking about his new book - Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal - My Adventures in Neurodiversity. He is a deeply kind and generous person - and his books and both witty and wise. And he is writing poems … here is his very brief poem about Greta Thunberg helping the downward path of the unpleasant stain that is Andrew Tate.

Each year I do talk a lot about hedgehogs - either in between the experts, or doing an actual hedgehog talk - this year I handed the hedgehogging duties over to Lea Grayston-Smith - who is doing a PhD at the University of Reading - and as part of that running Hogs on Film - another project looking to collect useful data from the trail cameras in our gardens. Do see if you can help!

She held the audience’s attention - in particular getting the youngsters excited in the bones she brought along! Oh, and proving how dedicated she is to the cause - with a hedgehog skull tattooed on her left forearm!!

Also at Wood - as he always is because he is the star of the show - the amazing Nick Cope - here is a clip of his BEST SONG - about a hedgehog called … Hugh!! Actually, that is a lie - my favourite song is this one, Little Grey Cloud … but, got to love a hedgehog song and a hedgehog called Hugh!!

In other news … there are still tickets available for the next three talks I am doing - on the 22nd May in Bristol with Chantal Lyons and Sophie Pavelle, then on the 29th in Calstock and the 30th in Newquay! 

Now, to start the write about the other amazing speakers who were Kindling up a storm of ideas! And, if you are excited by the idea of this festival - it always sells out and tickets for Wood 2026 go on sale today!