As autumn arrives, the Surrey Wildlife Trust is asking people to make their gardens hedgehog-friendly - and to look out for the creatures.

Nub News spoke to Lizzie Foster from the trust, and she gave us some top tips to help make your garden a haven for hedgehogs, to encourage them in and to create for them a place where they can thrive.

Lizzie told NubNews that the best way to attract hedgehogs into your garden is to put out food - not bread and milk because, surprisingly, hedgehogs are lactose-intolerant.

Lizzie says cat and dog food are best.

"You don't have to go out and buy expensive hedgehog food," she says, although the British Hedgehog Preservation Society recommends a brand called Hedgehog Street if you do want to splash out.

While on the subject of hedgehog food, it is worth noting that many slug pellets and pesticides are harmful to hedgehogs and should be avoided if at all possible.

The hedgehog's diet is quite a varied one: earthworms, beetles, slugs and caterpillars in the spring make up the bulk of their food intake, although any extra food you put out will be welcomed.

"If you feed them and also put out a little bowl of water for them they are likely to come into your garden, and return to it," says Lizzie.

The trust is also asking people to create a habitat that hedghogs will want to stay in: either by providing a hedgehog house, which you can make yourself, or creating natural features in which hedghogs can make their home, such as log piles or hedgerows in which they can settle.

Hedgehogs travel up to 2 kilometres a night, and need access between gardens, so making a small hole in your fence or ensuring there are gaps in your hedge will encourage them in.

"Because they travel such a long way at night we want people to talk to their neighbours about them, and ask if they have seen a hedgehog. Hedgehogs need access to gardens, and so people need to make sure there is a little gap for them to get through," says Lizzie.

"They can slide under hedges or gates, but if you have got solid fencing you can create a little 13cm hole that will be big enough for a hedgehog but small enough to stop your pets getting through.

"If you talk to your neighbours they might be encouraged to put holes in their fences. We call them 'hedghog highways', and they enable hedghogs to travel and forage at night."

Hedgehogs are currently designated as vulnerable to extinction, a sad predicament for animals which were once a common sight in the country's back gardens.

"I get so many people tell me they used to see them when they were little and don't see them anymore," Lizzie said.

But these moves could help encourage a visit fom the nocturnal creatures. "They love gardens and they are in little pockets eveywhere," LIzzie said.

To see if hedgehogs have been spotted near you, and report sightings, you can use this interactive map, set up by the trust to create a Hedgehog Map of Surrey.

Lizzie is urging to consider hedgehogs when gardening this autumn. Checking bonfires before lighting them is crucial, as well as creating hedgehog-friendly habitats for the creatures.

"Doing any little thing is really important, it doesn't have to be big or expensive."