The evening before, myself and hedgehog volunteer Ian ventured around the park in search of good spots for our footprint tunnels. We set out ten in total, running along fence lines and hedgerows around the perimeter of the park.

Once these were set we had a good old rummage in the foliage in search of signs of latrines and feeding signs of small mammals. As you might expect, we had a few confused looks from local dog walkers, which, after explaining what we were doing, didn’t always seem less confused by the situation.

The next morning myself and a group of local families went round the park to see if the footprint tunnels had been used, and to see what other signs of mammals we could find.

Eight out of ten tunnels were full of small mammal footprints and droppings. We found old field vole feeding remains amongst the long grass (and a beautiful wasp spider!), a wood mouse food store in the hollow of a tree, nuts cracked open and pine cones nibbled by squirrels.

Unfortunately we didn’t find any signs of hedgehog this time – fingers crossed for our next park detective event in October half term. We’ll be looking for signs of hedgehogs and other mammals in Chantry Park on Tuesday 24th October. Spaces are limited so please book onto this event by heading to our website here.