Hedgehog

The Sunday Challenge this week was a photo using flash. My Canon has a built in flash which I never use, so this was quite a challenge.
Almost every evening, from dusk onwards we have a visiting hedgehog, sometimes two, that scrabbles around underneath the bird feeders for nuts and seeds, and hopefully a few slugs too. It is very dark underneath the feeders, and I couldn't have an outside light on so much of the time I was guessing where the hedgehog was.
The first photos I tried using my normal Canon lens were hopeless as the heghog was under a planter and by the time I got there he had rolled into a ball. New measures were called for.
The following evening before it was too dark, I placed some bird food in a more open area, fitted a somewhat clunky Tamron 70-300 lens on the camera and sat down to wait. I had to position myself about 4 metres away from the possible sighting to stand a chance of getting the hedgehog in position, and a tripod would have been too cumbersome. This is the result straight from the camera - the flash is lighting up the gravel which was a pity. I think that after this the poor hedgehog was so traumatised, he just turned and waddled quickly down the path. I hope he appears again though. Next time I'll just sit quietly in the dark and watch.icement into the open.