To make matters worse...

To make matters worse, hedgehogs are rubbish at running, and rise up like a speedboat the faster they go

Never mind the Meteorological Office claims that spring starts on 1 March. It actually commences on the vernal equinox, which is 21 March. So ‘spring is sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where the birdies is’, as we used to sing in infants’ school. I can tell you where they are: they are hard at work collecting bugs, worms and flying under your wheelarches as you trundle along country lanes staring at primrose-encrusted banks. As one naturalist told me: “A female will do almost anything to get that worm if she has a nest full of young to feed.”

It’s not only birds, either. From now to mid-summer, young families of hedgehogs, foxes, squirrels and badgers will be particularly vulnerable. In their sets underground, the badger cubs are now getting their sight and their curiosity. Pretty soon, they will be playing outside in the dusk, often close to a road. The Mammals Trust claims some 50,000 badgers were killed on highways in 2006, because they freeze with terror if a car comes towards them. I hit one last year. She was running at the roadside round a bend, and when she came into view she sprang across my path and I ran into her, killing her outright. I felt awful for weeks, and every time I drive that road I think of her.

More than 15,000 hedgehogs are killed annually on our roads, and last year the Mammals Trust researched their behaviour. They used a 5km stretch of redundant tarmac in Windsor Great Park in Berkshire, and test hedgehogs were recruited from local gardens and fitted with tiny tracking lamps. They were put in boxes by the road and, once they’d left the container, their reactions were recorded with a car driving past and without. The researchers found that wide roads, street lamps and traffic do deter badgers. Their reactions to cars, however, tend to be too little, too late. They do nothing until the vehicle is 17 metres away, but don’t start to run until this gap has halved.

At 30mph, that gives you or the hedgehog just over half-a-second to react. At 60mph… well, the spiky critter doesn’t stand a chance. To make matters worse, hedgehogs are rubbish at running, and rise up like a speedboat the faster they go. Even if they pass between your front wheels, it’s likely the exhaust pipe will get them.

At least hedgehogs won’t damage your car – but hitting a deer will. The Department for Transport reckons there are as many as 54,000 deer-related traffic accidents in the UK, with the resulting damage costing up to чЈ10.5million excluding lost work time and motor repair bills. It’s estimated that up to 3,200 people are injured and 32 human lives lost in these incidents.

If you’ve ever seen what a deer can do to your car, you might want to think about slowing down on country roads. They appear from nowhere with all the road sense of a potato, and rely on their speed to keep them clear of vehicles – which, of course, doesn’t always happen.

Most animals will get out of your way if you give them time, but you also need to concentrate harder on country roads, especially at night. When there’s nothing coming the other way, I use the foglamps to illuminate the verges, which allows me to see the animals that tiny bit earlier.

Since 2001, the Mammals Trust has asked volunteers to record animals they see on single-carriageways, dead and alive, and they are beginning to build up a picture of mammal populations in the wider landscape. That survey starts on 1 July of each year and runs until the end of September. You can participate by clicking on www.ptes.org/action/surveys.html and downloading a survey form. If you’ve got children, it beats those long journey stalwarts of pub cricket, I-Went-To-Market or I-Spy, and by making yourself and perhaps others aware of wildlife, it might save a few lives as well.