Blondie is going home

A rare blond hedgehog rescued from the streets of Birmingham was being flown to its new home in Guernsey today.

Aptly named Blondie, the little hedgehog was found in a state of distress and taken to the West Midlands Hedgehog Rescue centre near Cannock where he was nursed back to health.

But because of his rare colouring, Blondie would not survive long if released back into the wild in the UK.

So the search began for a new home free of the hedgehog's natural predators such as foxes, badgers and stoats, and Guernsey was picked as the ideal place.

Today little Blondie was placed on a Flybe flight from Birmingham International Airport to Guernsey's Hedgehog Rescue Centre where he will enjoy a period of re-adjustment before being re-introduced back into a natural environment.

Joan Lockley, who runs the West Midlands Hedgehog Rescue Centre in Cheslyn Hay, said: "He is absolutely lovely and there were a lot of tears when they came to pick him up. I'm still choked up.

"He has been with us since July when he was just a few weeks old so I raised him by hand and over the years I've been doing this I have never got so attached.

"He stuck out like a sore thumb and he was always different from the others," added the 64-year-old.

"He used to come out of his nest and squeak to be picked up. But as he got bigger we had to make a decision and we knew we had to let him back out into the wild."

Blond hedgehogs are the most rare kind and in the past 30 years only three have been spotted in England.