Hibernation means staying inactive through the winter for a long period of time.

Have you hibernated before? I bet you have! Can you think of a time when it had been raining and it was cold outside, and instead of going out to play with your friends, you decided to snuggle down under a nice warm blanket or fluffy throw, and you had lots of your favourite goodies next to you! well, that is kind of like hibernating.

The following animals in the UK hibernate;

• Hedgehogs
• Bats
• Dormice
• Reptiles (slow worms, grass snakes, adders)
• Some insects (ladybirds, some butterflies,bumblebees)
• Amphibians (newts, toads, frogs)

Animals go into hibernation (snuggle down) around September or October and come out again 6 to 7 months later, normally around April. So they sleep all winter when it is cold and say hello again in spring when it starts getting warm. That seems like a very clever idea, doesn’t it?

Hibernating animals have to prepare themselves for the winter, so they eat lots and lots of food to make themselves really fat, and that fat will give them energy while they sleep (hibernate).

The animals slow their bodies right down, they are able to slow their heart rate and breathing down and also lower their body temperature. A hedgehog can slow its heartbeat down from 190 beats per minute to just 20 beats per minute and its body temperature will drop from 35’c to just 10’c!

If you ever come across an animal that is hibernating then you must not disturb it, because if you wake it up it will use a lot of energy, it will then have to look for food to survive, and in winter there is not a lot of food around.

Birds do not hibernate, but they also do not like the cold winter months, so what they do is fly thousands of miles to a warm country, this is called Migration. When the weather warms up again the birds will fly back, and it is usually to the exact same place they flew from before, so, every year these birds will leave and come back. I think it would be like going away on a nice holiday! what do you think?