The masked (common) shrew.

Masked shrew photographed from the front (top) and side (bottom).

The study of plants has never interested me a great deal, but I love growing things.  Every year I work in my garden.  I love to get my fingers in black earth to eliminate intruding plants, welcome new ones, and tend old favourites.  One of the great joys has been in the discovery of tiny entities, usually alive, as I discussed in one of my previous blogs (see the blog on the golden tortoise beetle).  Yesterday, in my domestic wanderings, I came across a deceased shrew that was in relatively good shape.

Intrigued, I immediately stopped what I was doing and began my investigation.  Shrews belong to a group of mammals called insectivores.  This particular one was a masked shrew, sometimes called the common shrew; its range covers a good portion of Canada.  From snout to tail tip it was four inches long, which helped in its identification as my field guide gave me that fact in so many words.  I have never found a live shrew of any variety, as they are very secretive, but rest assured there is probably one somewhere within 100 meters of your current position.

All shrews are voracious eaters, consuming up to their equivalent weight in prey on a daily basis.  The bulk of their diet is insects, most of which would be harmful ones.  They also eat many other invertebrates such as worms, centipedes, millipedes, sowbugs and the like.  Occasionally they may take on a small invertebrate such as the neonates of mice, birds, and even snakes.  There is a certain degree of irony there as shrews often fall victim to snakes, birds, and many mammals.  This one certainly did, as it was probably a cat which dispatched it.

Masked shrews are not very strong; their limbs are weak.  They cannot dig their own tunnels but can overturn leaf litter or burrow through well-aerated surface detritus. From the photo you can see that the eyes are not well developed; eyesight is mediocre at best.  They rely primarily on sent and touch; the whiskers an ever-present proximity device constantly on active duty.  With such magnificent appetites they are constantly on the search for food needing relatively little sleep.  A pregnant shrew may eat three times her own weight a day during gestation.  Masked shrews live only about 14 months and so experience about 5 seasons.

Shakespeare would have had an easier time of the taming of the shrew had he known some of these facts.  All it really takes is a cupboard full of food to keep one happy.  Well, that and an absence of cats.

Thanks for reading.   www.ericspix.com   Eric Svendsen