Close encounters of the prickly kind

The last thing I expected when I went into work at a large secondary school was to have a close encounter with one of our native British mammals. So when my colleague said "Look there's a hedgehog coming in the door" I was gobsmacked! As it was not going to find any food in our reception area I carefully picked it up to take it back outside:

Excuse photo quality but I was snapping from my phone in the other hand!

I was very surprised it didn't curl up into a ball. The spikes weren't all that prickly luckily and I was able to safely release it back into the bushes outside where it scuttled off pretty promptly..

I feel so lucky to have got up so close to one of our most loved but endangered species. It has inspired me to look at how to encourage hedgehogs into our garden via Hedgehog Street. They are good as pest controllers and look adorable at the same time!

Just hope this prickly creature survives living on a school site with lots of moving cars and students...