Who wakes up after sunset?

Think of the moment the sun slips down behind the trees. The sky turns orange, then pink, then deep blue. Feel how the air grows cool on your cheeks.

Soon it is time for you to snuggle into bed. Yet out in the gardens and woods, some animals are only now opening their eyes. Who wakes up after sunset?

It all begins at dusk, which means the soft, dim time right after the sun goes down. At dusk, the day animals settle down to sleep. Squirrels curl up in their nests, because they need daylight to find their food.

Then the night animals wake up. Owls, bats and hedgehogs open their eyes and stretch. They wake at dusk because the food they like moves about in the dark.

On a tree branch, a hungry owl sits very still and listens. Its ears hear a tiny mouse rustling in the grass. Down it swoops for its dinner, even in the dark.

A hedgehog shuffles out from under a bush. It sniffs along the ground with its pointy nose. That nose smells beetles and worms, so the hedgehog knows where to find a snack.

Now the bats leave their dark cave and swoop out into the night. They are hungry for moths, the soft fluttery bugs that fly after sunset. But how can a bat find a moth when the sky is so dark?

The bat calls out little squeaks, too high for your ears to hear. A squeak bumps into a moth and comes back as an echo, which means a sound that bounces back. The echo tells the bat where the moth is.

Snap! The bat follows the echo and catches the moth. Squeak and echo, squeak and echo, the bat hunts in the dark sky.

Let's remember our words: dusk and echo. At dusk, owls, bats and hedgehogs wake up to find food in the dark.

So tonight, as you snuggle down to sleep, the owls, bats and hedgehogs are waking up to say good evening to the dark.