My encounter with the hedgehog

Last year in Summer i visited the Cementary in Vienna for some wildlife photography, I was expecting Hamsters, kestrels and several other birds, but i didn't think that i will have the luck to find a hedgehog during the day. All species of hedgehogs can roll into a tight ball in self-defense, causing all of the spines to point outwards, but this one we found here was a bit curious about us visiters and came pretty close but also only as long as we didn't move too much. A quick movement and it quickly ran away hiding in a hole nearby.

It was already in the evening and the sun was already very low, but luckily i could still take some nice pictures even when this meant to bump up the ISO to 3200 to get reasonable shutter speeds.

Little Hedgehog at a gravestone. Picture: Florian Glechner.

Because we didn't move when we where lying in the grass the hedgehog took a longer look at us to see if we are dangerous for it or not. Luckily it came to the conclusion we are not that dangerous and it wandered around the graves and in the grass for several minutes. Although i used a pretty high ISO setting on the Camera the picture didn't get so much noise, this pretty surprised me. I think this Hegdehog is pretty cute and i am looking forward to see one again. I can still remember that my grandmoder did put aside a big pile of leaves for the hedgehog in autumn to help them get over the winter. But i don't remember ever seeing one there.

The Hedgehog is exploring the grass with his nose. Picture: Florian Glechner.

This Hedgehod was probably looking for a warm place to heat up a bit, because it stayed several seconds on this dark grey stone that was probably a bit heated from the last sunrays there. Maybe it was also looking for some food, snails and other eatable things and it was bothered by us so it stayed on the save place near it's earth hole. But this i don't know.

Closeup picture of the hedgehog. Picture: Florian Glechner.

hedgehog resting on the warm stone. Picture: Florian Glechner.