A Visitor

We've been chasing this little bastard for a couple of weeks now.

We've actually caught and released a couple, a while back, but then we've been seeing this one - and probably another, unless his fur gets lighter and darker - for a while but haven't been able to get him until now.

We thought that what we'd caught and released were voles, but once we had this guy trapped and could get a good look at him and take photos, to compare to other photos on The Google, we figured out that he's a shrew. Probably a short-tailed shrew.


Evidently, they are carnivorous and can literally eat their weight in insects, grubs and other rodents (or dog food?) daily. I'm a little worried about this guy, because the dog food doesn't seem to be disappearing. (We read that it was a good bait for traps, so we figure he should eat it.)

The plan is to release him to, but there's several inches of snow on the ground right now, so that doesn't seem right. At the moment, he's in a trash can in the laundry room, with (dog) food and water and some toilet paper rolls to hide in.

Yes, evidently we are fostering him until the weather warms up a bit. Which should be tomorrow, I believe.

He is kind of cute, and we've started referring to him as "squeaky" but he's a wild animal, and disease-carrying vermin - oh, and venomous. Yes. Venomous. So he is most definitely going back into the wild from whence he came.

This is one shrew who will not be tamed.

Don't worry, Peeper is only allowed to look at him, and not touch!