🦔Aksu🤎

Isn´t she just the sweetest thing... 💖

🎥 29.05.2021 #TeamSintti #animals #wildlife #kesä #summer #siili #hedgehog #ErinaceusEuropaeus #Aksu #luonto #mature #Suomi #Jyväskylä #Finland 🦔

🦔Guess Who?🤎

Some of you might remember, that in August 2020 we started looking after a hedgehog I named Aukusti- or "Aksu" for short.
Aksu was very likely born quite late in the summer and I was worried about him gaining enough weight to survive the winter hibernation. When the first freezing nights came, the hedgehogs vanished to their winter nests. By then Aksu was - at best - a "close call" but I knew I had done as much as I could.

This summer when the little guys started appearing here again, it was obvious to me that at least two of them had spent their winter somewhere very close to our HQ as expected. Also, I suspected from the beginning, that one of them was our Aksu - and about two weeks ago, after enough sightings in good lighting and at a BERY close range I got my confirmation, as he had a few tell-tale signs in his physical appearance. The hedgehog you see in this post is definitely our very own Aksu.

Now then... there´s just one more teeny, tiny detail to add: it is now clear to me that #Aukusti should have been named "Augusta" !
I never checked that as it is completely irrelevant to what I do. But the "advances" made by the two other hedgehogs towards our little Lady tell a very convincing story. As a matter of fact, one of them is very likely Sipe - also from last summer - while the other male is a younger, smaller one. And gets brutalized by Sipe every single time they appear here at the same time, dammit. Luckily, all the hedgehogs now know that there is food here at all times and usually, mostly, take turns.
It´ll be fun to wait and see if Aksu and Sipe will mate this summer - I can tell you that "the mating game" is very much on at the moment !

📷 25.05.2021 #TeamSintti #animals #wildlife #kesä #summer #luonto #nature #siili #hedgehog #Aksu #ErinaceusEuropaeus #Suomi #Jyväskylä #Finland