No hogwash with prickly problem

A rare orphaned hedgehog found in a back garden is to get star treatment this week when he is flown back to his island home from Staffordshire.

Blondie, a male hedgehog, is believed to be native to Alderney in the English channel.

Mystery surrounds how he ended up in Wolverhampton. He has been nursed back to health by a Cheslyn Hay charity for hedgehogs and will this week be flown first-class back to the Channel Islands by airline Flybe who have agreed to transport him home.

Blondie, named because he is almost entirely blonde in colour, was discovered as a baby by pensioners Kath and Arthur Windsor from Wednesfield.

Along with two other orphaned babies the couple took him to the home of 64-year-old Joan Lockley, who runs the West Midlands Hedgehog Rescue from her home in Leveson Avenue, in Cheslyn Hay.

Mrs Lockley, who takes on injured, sick or abandoned hedgehogs began nursing him back to health but soon noticed a difference between Blondie and the rest of the creatures she was caring for.

She said: "I was feeding about 17 babies by hand one after the other when I notice he was different to all the others.

"We looked it up and they originate only from the Alderney Islands and there only about 1,000 of them left in the wild now."

She contacted hedgehog expert Kay Bullen, from the Hedgehog Protection Society, who confirmed the identification.

Mrs Lockley added: "He has grown too big to be released in this country so we wrote to the Channel Islands to see if they would take him and a day later we had a call saying that the airline Flybe had agreed to take him home this Thursday.

"It's been quite a job to get ready and we had to have a vets certificate to say the hedgehog was fit to fly to Guernsey which was funny."

Blondie will start his journey home at Birmingham Airport on Thursday where Mrs Lockley will have to say goodbye.

She said: "He is very affectionate actually and I'm sure there will be a few tears when he goes. You do get attached to some hedgehogs more than others and he is a lovely little animal."