Here at the Lodge Day Nursery we are proud to lend our support to Hedgehog Awareness Week (6 – 12 May 2018) and help the Suffolk Wildlife Trust make Ipswich the most hedgehog friendly town in the UK.
We have our specially designed ‘hedgehog lodge’ in our garden to provide shelter for hedgehogs in the area and also a place for them to hibernate. The specially-built hedgehog lodge is modelled on the nursery’s Victorian exterior. Alongside this, children at the Lodge have a hedgehog-based signing in and out board and there are several hedgehog drawings hanging on the walls which were produced by children’s author Nick Butterworth when he officially opened the nursery back in February.
“We are right behind the Suffolk Wildlife Trust in their plans to make Ipswich as hedgehog friendly as possible,” comments Hayley List, manager at the Lodge Day Nursery. “We have made holes at the bottom of our fences to allow hedgehogs to move around freely and we really hope that some hedgehogs take up residence in our garden. As well as making changes to our own environment we are also educating young children about the importance of hedgehogs. If children can appreciate just how beautiful these animals are, we hope that they will grow up wanting to nurture and protect them.”
The Lodge Day Nursery is part of Ipswich School which is also fully committed to supporting the initiative. The grounds around the school’s Westwood boarding house have many hedgehog shelters constructed by the school’s gardeners and the whole site has been designed to be hedgehog and wildlife friendly.
