The plucky, prickly soul was discovered on Thursday by a member of staff at Wallace Veterinary Centre in Carnoustie after he made his way to the car park of the surgery to get some much-needed medical attention.

Veterinary nurse Emma Light said, “He was being attacked by crows and was running across the road towards us and then went under a car to hide.”

Ms Light went outside to retrieve the creature, which was still taking refuge beneath a vehicle. Luckily it was not injured but was visibly distressed and underweight.

The surgery contacted Sandy Boyd of the Wormit Hedgehog Care Centre, and the hedgehog was kept in overnight until Mr Boyd came to collect it the next day.

Ms Light added, “He must have known where we were. He was very cute, but we didn’t give him a name.”

The creature weighed only 276g—the size of a six-week-old hedgehog—but Mr Boyd suspects it is actually around four months and had been living under a shed all this time.

The target weight for a creature of this age is normally around 650g.

Mr Boyd said, “Three-hundred grams is usually a six-week-old hedgehog. This is when they leave the nest and go off on their own.

“I wouldn’t think it was just six weeks’ old. He will have been a late baby, born in October.

“The house across the road from the vets has been getting walls rebuilt and gates put on and there is every possibility the creature has been under the garden area and has managed to survive.”

Mr Boyd said it was the sixth hedgehog the centre has had since new year and that these “autumn orphans” were being cared for until they are ready to be released in the springtime, weather permitting.

He added that hedgehogs are nocturnal creatures so if any are found out and about in the daytime something must be wrong.

He also said smaller, malnourished creatures found at night should be taken into the centre to give them a good chance of survival.