Say hello to our other little friend, the Shrew; he likes to open up nickel-sized holes around the seeds we put down. They say he doesn't see or smell well (uses echolocation, like a bat), but - wow - he sure move like lightning between the holes over the soil and from underneath! Pretty much every 10 seconds for half a minute, then wait 45 seconds (perhaps he's stashing seeds deeper), then back to 10 seconds. These days, though, he uses more than one of the holes in that 10-second interval.
This will be a little test to see if the animated gif of it I did with a dozen shots came out; if not, well, welcome to the view of the shrew's holes at the Observatory, and enjoy the still shots! What can I say?
 |
| Only about 3" long, and I'm pretty sure he knows when he feels the thumps of our footsteps, that's his cue to check for seeds. |
 |
| Long body comes in handy to bend right back around to go back into his hole. |
|
|
Normally, they eat snails, salamanders, earthworms, voles and mice. His saliva can paralyze prey, even kill small mammals; a bite would be painful for humans, and it wouldn't surprise me if face and leg injuries to the red squirrels vying for seeds came from such as this little guy. We once saw a red squirrel stomp its feet near a shrew hole to discourage it from popping out.
It's hard work to be a shrew, eating three times its weight every day. They have two or three litters a year, but their lifespan is about 14 months (about as long as a grey squirrel); only 6% of the young survive their first winter.
So, hats off to this little guy, and Godspeed!
See you soon!
"Lark"
No comments:
Post a Comment