Night of the night event

A few weeks ago we were asked to participate in an event of the IVN organisation in our hometown, to speak about hedgehogs. It didn’t take much consideration to accept that offer! And so, tonight we’ve build up camp and made a small table with educational things.

Night of the night is an annual event by the IVN organisation department of Hoogeveen in The Netherlands. It’s an event in the dark where people speak about animals that live nocturnally and we were asked to speak about hedgehogs and to include our field research. This year it started around 6:20 pm just after the sun set and it was amazing!

We were right after the start point on the route through the dark forest, where we set up our tarp tent as if we were wildcamping along with a table set up with a microscope to see the cross section of a hedgehog’s quill, the paperwork from field research, some biology books and a hedgehog hide. It’s not too far off from how we made camp on our field research adventures!

During the event we told the passing groups that hedgehogs are nocturnal animals that originally live along the vast forests, although nowadays they also live in cities due to the constant disappearance of natural space for the construction of houses and industrial buildings. We also told them about their diet and where and how they hibernate. We even brought along one of our hedgehogs (Nacho, the Long-eared Hedgehog) so that children could pet a hedgehog. Most people also asked a few questions, which easily filled the six-minute window per group (you know me, I could talk for hours if given the chance!).

It was a nice and educative evening and we’ve heard that the children were very impressed with the hedgehog story.