Hedgehog
• Hedgehogs were also called hedge pigs.
• In the 1980s hedgehog flavoured crisps were made, but luckily they didn’t contain any hedgehog!
• An adult hedgehog has 5,000 to 7,000 spines.
• A baby hedgehog is called a hoglet.
• There may be up to 500 fleas on one hedgehog but the specific hedgehog flea (known as Archaepsylla erinacei) rarely bites humans.
Peacock butterfly
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Peacock butterflies overwinter as an adult. This means you may see them flying on warm winter days.
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The ‘eyes’ on their wings give them their common name but the underside of a peacock butterfly’s wings looks like a dead leaf.
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The peacock lays its eggs on stinging nettles and these are the food plant of the caterpillars when they hatch out.
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The newly hatched caterpillars spin a communal web and they stay in this to feed until they are big enough to forage on their own.
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The peacock butterfly is a strong flyer and ranges widely to find its preferred habitat of in the shelter of woodland edges, clearings and rides.
House Martin nest
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It takes house martins approximately 10 days to construct their mud-cupped nest.
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It takes approximately 1,000 beaked size mud pellets to make each nest.
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Roughly 86% of swallows in Britain attempt to rear two broods.
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It takes roughly 3 weeks for the house martin nest to be built.
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House martins prefer to re-use old nests to building a new one – re-use, reduce, recycle!
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A bit of a squeeze, but one nest was once recorded as holding 11 house martins.