Young Hedgehog FRiend in New Zealand

Recently when I was struggling with my mental health, I decided to go for a walk to a pretty rugged reserve near home. It was an overcast evening. I saw a very small hedgehog walking along the path. I have never seen a hedgehog that small before in the entire five decades of my life. 

This was my clearest photo:

I quickly walked back home to get my camera. The little hedgehog had walked quite some distance but was still by the path but hiding in some grass. I walked away then very quietly walked closer and waited. It came out of the grass and I filmed some snippets plus took photos from over a metre away. It even walked toward me, less than a foot (around 30cm) away from the camera. 

It was such a lovely experience to have a little hedgehog friend.

Apparently a hedgehog of that size (approx than 3 inches or 8cm long) is around 2 months old and called a hoglet. Hedgehogs were introduced to New Zealand (by the English, I think).

This photo gives more an idea of scale. Was less than a third of the size of an adult hedgehog. There was still enough light to take some photos and video.

The video clip compliation has all video I took, in sequence. It seems to be quite popular. Seems it's uncommon to see a juvenille hedgehog in the wild.