This morning (at about 4.30 am) I was walking along some large spruces near private garden allotments when beneath the spruce boughs I heard the typical puffing/grunting sounds made by a hedgehog while foraging.
We (my dog and I) sat down quietly to listen but then we proceeded on our way.
We noticed another hedgehog who had been approaching (probably unseen to the first hedgehog) and this hedgehog now curled up in a ball.
Hedgehogs have been active for about a week at least (this has been a very warm March) and perhaps this hedgehog was already interested in finding a mate although it is far too early.
(Supposedly, hedgehogs resume mating once they have recovered body reserves after hibernation and these particular hedgehogs live in an area where cat food is left out for strays on regular basis and in some quantities. Perhaps they could regain body weight quickly.)
Maybe the hedgehog had heard the enthusiastic foraging by the other hedgehog and, judging by the sound, reckoned this was a good general area to be searching for food.
Alternatively, the second hedgehog might simply have happened to pass by with no ulterior motives.
We passed by the curled-up little buddy but it turned out that the other hedgehog (who had stopped puffing as it had heard our footsteps) had located itself right next to the path rather than retreated somewhere further.
As we walked by it, it did not curl up entirely but it hissed very fiercely at us.
Hissing sound is quite unequivocal and whether it meant aggression or fear, we did not want to upset the hedgehog and we walked off.
The hedgehog (left behind us) began meowing.
I was so perplexed that I stopped.
The sound resembled meowing more than it resembled any other sound.
Later when I tried to look up whether hedgehogs meowed, I learned of no such vocalization in their known repertoire.
The closest was a ‘scream’ (distress, pain) but the scream (in the recordings that I found) was still not exactly the sound that we heard although it made me worried that the hedgehog was wounded or something else was wrong with it.
I turned back just to see whether the hedgehog had not gotten itself into trouble (e.g., there could be some garbage left behind by humans that a hedgehog could entangle itself into etc.).
As we approached, the hedgehog hissed again.
But as we, once more, retreated, it meowed.
I had to make a quick decision because I did not want to aggravate the hedgehog for too long and if it was okay, we had to move on so that it could calm down.
I decided that there could not have been anything wrong with the hedgehog because mere seconds ago it had been huffing happily on search for food and this was a relatively clean area where normally no debris lay around.
The place was very dusky due to the spruces and some large oaks and I could not really make much sense of anything.
The other hedgehog was entirely quiet and it did not give me the impression of any kind of distress which also reassured me because I though if the first hedgehog had been in any real pain, the second hedgehog might have been slightly more agitated.
We walked off hoping for the best (later I returned when it was light already and I found no injured hedgehog, no blood, no garbage, nothing to indicate there had been actual harm).
I assumed the hedgehog had perhaps been startled by us greatly and the screaming/meowing was a vocalization communicating this emotional state.
However, as I have mentioned, the vocalization was not precisely similar to the screaming vocalizations I have found on the internet.
The screaming vocalizations seem to sometimes start with a sound resembling a meow but then it proceeds into a very human-baby-like tonality.
This vocalization prolonged the meowing part of the scream without turning into a scream.
Also, what puzzled me was that the hedgehog meowed as we were going away.
It mostly hissed when we approached (or hissed/meowed).
But as we retreated, it meowed even more loudly.
If the sounds were the result of fear/predation threat situation, why did the hedgehog intensity its vocalizations as the threat was obviously fading?
I believe the vocalization was something a bit other than the scream.
It is possible to assume that a vocalization is not uniform in its intent through all of its duration.
For example, a scream might consist of the initial part where the hedgehog expresses bewilderment, uncertainty of what is going to happen and if the situation evolves to be more frightening or painful, the initial doubt/apprehension could turn into the ‘pure scream’.
(I.e., the scream begins with ‘what is happening? what is the meaning of this? how am I feeling? is this going to end well?’ and proceeds into ‘I do not like this, it hurts, this is bad, this must stop’.)
In this case, it did not turn into a ‘pure scream’ and remained a meow which perhaps communicated a combination of doubt, fear and even very slight curiosity.
There was nobody else for the hedgehog to communicate with and these vocalizations were directed at us (I do not suppose the first hedgehog had ever noticed the second hedgehog’s presence).
Most hedgehog vocalizations that I have found on the internet come from captive situations or extreme distress events (badger attack, injury, entanglement in the fencing wires etc.).
Perhaps this prolonged meowing is a vocalization that occurs in the wild and that is not associated with extreme conditions.
It was almost as if the hedgehog was calling us back because it wanted to understand what we were but then it got too scared and fear/certainty was the dominating emotion.
On the other hand, the hedgehog could have been a very feisty one and it might have meowed at us in order to intimidate us against even thinking of returning (‘that is right, you better go, else I will tear you apart!’).
Perhaps someone else will observe hedgehog meowing (and the vocalization might be known under some other name but it reminded of meowing to me) and I will get more context to this behaviour.
All in all, it seems to me that the vocalization ‘scream’, in fact, consists of two vocalizations one of which is the ‘meow’ (or it could be termed otherwise according to observer’s auditory associations) and the other one is the actual ‘scream’.
The ‘meow’ introduces the ‘scream’ but it can be expressed separately and prolonged to indicate what is perhaps a state of mingled fear, doubt, curiosity and excitement.
Notes by Ieva 