A litter of shrews must have outgrown the nest because I found one shrew after another blithely hopping around today. Or maybe it was the same shrew twice. Shrews are very cute, so for the second sighting, I called Nick over and we managed to capture it in a little plastic butter tub. He was stunned and didn't move when we put his tub into 5 gallon bucket and took off the little pink lid.
I wasn't sure if he could leap out of the taller bucket, so I had Nick watch him while I went to dig up a worm for him to eat. Mmmm. Shrews eat a lot, I remembered, and I didn't want him to die on my watch. Nick was fidgety so I reiterated that he should observe and report. Staring silently at something would be good for him for a change.
"He's not dead, Mom!" he yelled. "He's moving a little!"
His voice must have vibrated the walls of that bucket. Poor little guy. I found an unsuspecting worm buried in the dirt and rolled him onto my shovel. There was no sense in handling more squishy gooey creatures than I needed to. As I walked up the hill, I realized that no shrew would be satisfied by a paltry worm this size. I'd have to work harder than this. Nickie tried unsuccessfully to catch a butterfly for Shrewbert to eat.
Thanks to my trusty iPhone, we learned that a shrew's heart beats 700 times a minute and it eats up to three times its weight every day. They can starve to death within five hours without sufficient food. I'm glad I don't have to eat that much. Shrews are carnivores and eat insects, slugs, worms, even small birds and mammals. This one looked so small and soft but we didn't actually touch it to find out. It didn't really look like it would attack a bird or another shrew. Wow! That would be a thing to see, don't you think?
So we left a large slug in the bucket with Shrewbert along with some grass clippings and the worm. I kind of felt sorry for the slug and had wished we'd have been able to find a brown slug instead of a banana slug. Banana slugs are native to our forest and the brown ones are exotics. A ranger once told me to kill all the brown ones I found, but even so I can't make myself do it. This banana slug was the size of a small snake, at least eight or nine inches long when we looked at him all stretched out. He was at least three times the size of Shrewbert who was no bigger than a pecan in its shell. We figured that slug would last Shrewbert until we got back from karate class. On the way home Nickie hoped out loud that their battle hadn't gone too badly. Mike and I decided that with Shrewbert's appetite, we needed to let him go as soon as we got home.
Well, it's hard to say just what happened, but Shrewbert was dead when we looked into his bucket. Maybe it was the shock of being caught by the very loud humans. Maybe it was a battle with a very large native slug who seemed fine. Maybe Shrewbert wasn't very healthy to begin with since we were able to catch him so easily. It was a sad moment for Nickie who had just wanted to keep him for a day or two, to watch him, and tell us what he liked to eat.
It was a very bad day for Shrewbert.
Thank you for listening, jb
I wasn't sure if he could leap out of the taller bucket, so I had Nick watch him while I went to dig up a worm for him to eat. Mmmm. Shrews eat a lot, I remembered, and I didn't want him to die on my watch. Nick was fidgety so I reiterated that he should observe and report. Staring silently at something would be good for him for a change.
"He's not dead, Mom!" he yelled. "He's moving a little!"
His voice must have vibrated the walls of that bucket. Poor little guy. I found an unsuspecting worm buried in the dirt and rolled him onto my shovel. There was no sense in handling more squishy gooey creatures than I needed to. As I walked up the hill, I realized that no shrew would be satisfied by a paltry worm this size. I'd have to work harder than this. Nickie tried unsuccessfully to catch a butterfly for Shrewbert to eat.
Thanks to my trusty iPhone, we learned that a shrew's heart beats 700 times a minute and it eats up to three times its weight every day. They can starve to death within five hours without sufficient food. I'm glad I don't have to eat that much. Shrews are carnivores and eat insects, slugs, worms, even small birds and mammals. This one looked so small and soft but we didn't actually touch it to find out. It didn't really look like it would attack a bird or another shrew. Wow! That would be a thing to see, don't you think?
So we left a large slug in the bucket with Shrewbert along with some grass clippings and the worm. I kind of felt sorry for the slug and had wished we'd have been able to find a brown slug instead of a banana slug. Banana slugs are native to our forest and the brown ones are exotics. A ranger once told me to kill all the brown ones I found, but even so I can't make myself do it. This banana slug was the size of a small snake, at least eight or nine inches long when we looked at him all stretched out. He was at least three times the size of Shrewbert who was no bigger than a pecan in its shell. We figured that slug would last Shrewbert until we got back from karate class. On the way home Nickie hoped out loud that their battle hadn't gone too badly. Mike and I decided that with Shrewbert's appetite, we needed to let him go as soon as we got home.
Well, it's hard to say just what happened, but Shrewbert was dead when we looked into his bucket. Maybe it was the shock of being caught by the very loud humans. Maybe it was a battle with a very large native slug who seemed fine. Maybe Shrewbert wasn't very healthy to begin with since we were able to catch him so easily. It was a sad moment for Nickie who had just wanted to keep him for a day or two, to watch him, and tell us what he liked to eat.
It was a very bad day for Shrewbert.
Thank you for listening, jb
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