Send us your wildlife sightings

Why send us your hedgehog sightings?
According to a project run by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society three recent surveys all indicate downward trends in hedgehog populations: “We appear to have lost around 30% of the population since 2002 and therefore it seems likely that there are now fewer than a million hedgehogs left in the UK.”  If you have a hedgehog in your garden please do let us know. You do not have to see it to know it is visiting your garden: if you see hedgehog droppings or footprints you can still submit your record.


Why do we want your house martin nest sightings?
Look up high and see if you can find a house martin nest on the side of your house or on any buildings where you live. House martins are rapidly declining, but it is not clear why, so knowing their distribution in Norfolk is important to aid their conservation.


Why do we want your peacock butterfly sightings?

Peacock butterflies are frequent visitors to gardens, often seen feeding on buddleia, ivy blossom and bramble. With red wings and distinctive eyespots, this butterfly is an easy garden visitor to spot. Butterflies are valuable indicators of the health of the environment; submit your peacock butterfly sightings and put them on the map.

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

• Peacock butterflies overwinter as an adult. This means you may see them flying on warm winter days.
• The ‘eyes’ on their wings give them their common name but the underside of a peacock butterfly’s wings looks like a dead leaf.
• The peacock lays its eggs on stinging nettles and these are the food plant of the caterpillars when they hatch out.
• 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.
• 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

• It takes house martins approximately 10 days to construct their mud-cupped nest.
• It takes approximately 1,000 beaked size mud pellets to make each nest.
• Roughly 86% of swallows in Britain attempt to rear two broods.
• It takes roughly 3 weeks for the house martin nest to be built.
• House martins prefer to re-use old nests to building a new one – re-use, reduce, recycle!
• A bit of a squeeze, but one nest was once recorded as holding 11 house martins.