A STRANGE ENCOUNTER

On the 14 th August 2005 , Denice Caulfield and I were walking along the North wall at the Minsmere RSPB reserve, watching out for any birds flying over the reed bed. Denice called out that there was something moving on the track in front of us, so we stopped and looked through binoculars. There appeared to be two shrews moving around an object on the path. We moved a bit closer to get a better view, and from their colouration, black with greyish underparts, identified them as probably water shrews. What was more surprising was what they were doing – frantically feeding on fox droppings! This was the type of dropping that consisted mainly of fruit remains due to the number of plum, probably bullace, stones present. They appeared to be digging into the dropping and at first I thought they were eating invertebrates in it. Their attention was so focused on feeding that we were able to walk right up to them, and from this close it looked as if they were eating the actual dropping itself. I can only assume that there was some nutritional value due to the fruit content. I also noted the fringe of hairs under the tails of the animals, confirming my suspicions they were water shrews.

As often with this kind of observation, my camera was in the car so I wasn’t able to record it with a photo. After a few minutes, the animals moved off across the path and disappeared into the reed bed. This was certainly our best and most memorable encounter with this rarely seen mammal.

Neil Sherman