Stocking up for the winter

AS WE move from the so-called season of mists and mellow fruitfulness into the colder and shorter days of winter, humans are not the only creatures preparing for the seasonal change generally marked by Halloween.

The abundance of fruit and berries this year will be converted into food reserves by birds and other animals which have their own ways of surviving the long period of little growth. Wildlife has its own mechanisms for dealing with winter, and there’s more to hibernation than simply sleeping through it.

Our old friend the hedgehog is an animal many people associate with hibernation and it certainly does a disappearing act, probably in some quiet corner of the garden. But other animals, including rats, mice and squirrels, do not take a long snooze and it’s business as usual for them through the winter.