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Hedgehogs like to eat slugs, snails and other bugs. However, they like to eat lots of other things too, including birds eggs and frogs. Hedgehogs spend the day sleeping under hedgerows or shrubs. They will roam long distances at night looking for food.
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Hedgehogs like to eat slugs, snails and other bugs. However, they like to eat lots of other things too, including birds eggs and frogs.
Hedgehogs spend the day sleeping under hedgerows or shrubs. They will roam long distances at night looking for food.
Hedgehogs are eaten by foxes and owls. To protect themselves, hedgehogs will roll into a ball and stick their spikes out.
Hedgehogs are light brown in colour, with around 6,000 spines covering their body. They can grow up to 25cm in length.
Hedgehogs have a good sense of smell and hearing, but quite poor eyesight. There can be up to 500 fleas on a hedgehog!
British bats eat flying insects and nothing else. A bat can catch up to 3000 insects a night! In other countries, bats can eat fruit, flowers, fish, frogs and even blood!
` Where bats live is called their 'roost.' Some places bats like to roost are trees, caves, bridges, barns or even houses! In the winter, bats go into hibernation and they usually move Into caves or tunnels, where it is cooler and they won't be disturbed.
Bats are the only mammals that can fly. They have large ears and wings. Like other mammals, bats are covered in hair. British bats range in size from just 4cm to 8cm.
Bats have incredible hearing, and use sound to catch their prey. They use 'echolocation,' meaning they find things using echoes.
Foxes will eat anything they can find or catch such as fruit, berries, nuts, birds, mammals, rats, insects, eggs, slugs - and anything humans leave around.
Foxes live in an underground den. They are very good at digging. Foxes live almost anywhere – in woodlands, fields towns and gardens.
Foxes don’t have many predators in Britain, other than man. For many years, foxes were hunted with horses and dogs, but this is now illegal.
Foxes have sharp, curved claws, sharp teeth, and thick, insulating red fur to keep them warm. Their big, bushy tail is called a ‘brush’.
Foxes are mostly active at night, their eyes being specially adapted to night-time vision. The fox's hearing is also excellent, helping it to locate prey easily. A male fox is called a dog, a female is called a vixen.
Dormice spend the day curled up in a tight ball in their nests. They live in woodlands and fields where there is plenty of undergrowth and shrubs.
Predators are not a major problem for the dormouse. Tawny owls will catch the occasional dormouse in woodlands.
Dormice have large, shiny, black eyes to help them feel and see in the dark. They also have big tails to help them balance.
A dormouse weighs the same as two £1 coins. They can live for up to 5 years.
Badgers eat up to 200 worms a day. They can also eat mice, rats, beetles, berries and birds eggs.
Badgers live in setts and some are over 100 years old and may have more than 40 entrances. The underground tunnels may be up to 30m long.
Badgers have very few predators. Badger cubs may be eaten by foxes or buzzards, but many badgers are killed each year by cars.
Badgers are easily recognisable by their black and white striped faces. They have sharp claws for digging and they sharpen them on a scratching tree near their setts.
Badgers recognise others from their sett by their smell. Badgers can live for up to 15 years.
Many owls feed mainly on furry animals such as mice, rats, moles, squirrels and rabbits. They often swallow the smaller animals whole. They also eat insects, worms, spiders, frogs, lizards, and small birds.
There are six types of owl in Britain. They often live in old barns, tree hollows, nest boxes or sometimes holes in the ground.
Owls have powerful talons (claws) which help them catch and kill prey. Owls have large eyes and a flat face. The colour of owl’s feathers helps them blend into their environment (camouflage). Barn owls can be recognized by their heart shaped face.