Photo from Flickr by Randomtruth

I misspoke already, it should read, “Skiing and Shrews.”  Twice this month I have encountered shrews while cross-country skiing.  Once, in the moonlight, skiing on the groomed tracks at Apex, a tiny dark blur marred the white landscape.  The shape was unmistakably shrew-like, and the tiny mammal ran across the groomed trail, up and down the tracks, even trying to hide beneath my skis when I stopped to watch him.  All shrews are comparatively small, most no larger than a mouse. But the smallest is the Etruscan Shrew (Suncus etruscus) which at about 3.5 cm and 2 grams is the smallest living land mammal.  Eventually he disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared.  Upon closer inspection, we, for another skier has stopped to appreciate this natural history moment with me, found a tiny coin-sized hole in the snow that must have been the shrew’s run.  We speculated that he was out and about, and when he came back to his hole, he just couldn’t find it at first… perhaps because we were standing between him and his lair.

Of course I had to do some research on shrews, but not until I found another shrew in the snow.  This time I was skiing on the un-groomed rail trail at Cottonwood Lake.  There in the tracks, or rather, below the tracks I saw a suspicious looking dark speck in the snow.  Snow had been falling for days, and the only other dark specks on the ground were pine-cone bits from feeding birds.  I backed up and dug my fingers into the snow, pulling out a tiny, frozen form.

I held the little grey shrew to my fact, listening and feeling for movement.  Finding non, I put her in my pocket.  Skiing along, I kept imagining her waking, stirring, sticking her frightened little head out of my pocket, wondering what was going on.  I know some animals, like frogs, can freeze solid and survive, waking upon thawing.  I guess it was too much to hope that maybe shrews could do that too.  It all comes, I suppose, of being warm blooded.

I’ve learned  a lot about shrews these past few weeks from the library and Wikipedia.  I will always thank my professor at Oregon State University though, for villifying the shrew for me, as he compared it to the timid vegetarian voles.  Shrews, unlike voles, are not rodents and do not eat grains or plants at all.  Shrews look somewhat like long-nosed mice, but are more closely related to moles.  They are classified in the order Soricomorpha and have sharp, red-tipped teeth, not the flat gnawing teeth of rodents and rabbits.  They have small eyes, and poor vision, but have excellent senses of hearing and smell.  They are very active animals, with voracious appetites and unusually high metabolic rates. Shrews must eat 80-90 % of their own body weight in food daily.

Shrews are also one of the most diverse and abundant mammal families, following rodents and bats.  It seems that their diversity stems from recent periods of isolation caused by ice events, where warming and cooling temperatures caused shrews to form isolated populations which then became distinct species.  This is the commonly held hypothesis as to why there are so many similar looking and acting shrews, especially in North America.  But while many different species of shrews may be found in a few square kilometers, each will inhabit a slightly different micro-habitat, some specialize in climbing trees, living underground, living under snow or even hunting in water.

Shrews do not hibernate, which is why I found two in the snow.  They are, however, capable of entering torpor. In winter, some species may lose between 30% and 50% of their body weight, shrinking the size of bones, skull and internal organs.^[3]

But shrews are even cooler than that!  Shrews hold nearly 10% of their mass in their brain, which is the highest brain to body mass ratio of all animals (including humans).  Then there’s the poison – some species of shrew are venomous.  The shrews venom comes through grooves in its teeth to enter the body of its prey.  The American short-tailed shrew contains enough venom in its body to kill 200 mice!

The Northern Short-tailed Shrew is known to echolocate!!

As if the tiny shrew doesn’t have enough surprises, they can also echolocate!  I know.  Bizzare and amazing.  Besides bats and marine mammals, The only mammals known to echolocate are shrews and the tenrecs of Madagascar. The shrews emit series of ultrasonic squeaks.  In contrast to bats, shrews use echolocation only to investigate their habitat rather than to pinpoint food.  Except for large objects, such as a big stone or tree trunk, they will probably only recieve information on habitat type from the overall call reverberations. This might be comparable to human hearing whether one calls into a beech forest or into a reverberant wine cellar.

Sources:  Wikipedia and Mammals of the Canadian Wild

Moose (Alces alces) are the largest existing members of the deer family.  They live in boreal and mixed deciduous forests across the Northern Hemisphere even up to subarctic climates.  Moose originated in Eurasia and came over the Bering land bridge to North America.  They once had a quite broad range which has been reduced by hunting and other human activities.  Moose are vegetarians, eating leaves, twigs, even bark of both land and water plants.  The most common moose predators are wolves, bears, and humans. Unlike most other deer species, moose are not gregarious, meaning they keep to themselves and do not form herds. Although generally slow-moving and sedentary, moose can become aggressive and move surprisingly fast if angered or startled. I hear many people have been treed by mama moose protecting their babies.  The mamas have one young or twins each year, and keep their young with them for almost a year.  Their mating season in the autumn can lead to spectacular fights between males competing for the right to mate with a particular female.

Confusingly, Alces alces is known in Britain as the elk, and in North America as the moose.  Elk refers to Alces alces in many Indo-European languages, for example elg in Norwegian, älg in Swedish, Elch in German and łoś in Polish.  Of course elk is used in North America to refer to a different animal altogether, Cervus canadensis, also knows as wapiti, the second largest deer species.  Cervus canadensis is more similar to the red deer of central and western Europe than it is to our Moose, Alces alces.

Presumably early European explorers in North America called it elk because of its size and presumably because, as men coming from the British Isles they would have had no opportunity to see the difference between a member of the genus Cervus and an animal fitting the description of Alces at home, where the latter had disappeared by the 17th century.  The word “moose” first entered English by 1606, borrowed from the Algonquian languages.

The moose’s long, gangly legs are key to its life and niche.  The moose thrives in old growth and where fires have burned, creating snags and dead fall.  All the vigorous new growth after a firs provides a rich food source for the moose, while the fallen trees and branches give it an advantage over its predators.  The moose can easily step and leap over obstacles on the forest floor, enabling it to evade wolves, cougars, and grizzly.  This same advantage is realized in swamps and ponds, and in deep snow, all habitats friendly to the long-legged moose.  I have been lucky enough to find a lone moose track while skiing near my house.  The area bisects beaver ponds and wetlands, and the forest is incredibly thick with trees.  How exhilarating it would be to ski around a corner and glimpse a moose stepping gingerly into the dark woods.  I hope he’s not feeling feisty though, it sure would be hard to climb a tree in skis.

(Sources: Wikipedia and Knee High Nature: Winter)

The best anecdote I have found, for too many parties, too many sugary cookies, too much coffee, too many potlucks, too much Santa, too many presents… is simply to go outside!

If you are here in Nelson, BC and spend time with children under six, join us for Nature Babies in the new year.  Join up with us at the Family Place Friday, January 6 for some inside nature play, and get your name on our mailing list.  You will also find out about our upcoming outdoor programs.  Our theme for January will be Winter Birds, and we may even make some bird feeders to help our overwintering feathered friends along.  We  had such fun last month inside, and have spent the past three weeks exploring Grohman Narrows Park – walking on the frozen pond, listening to squirrels, following animal footprints, and making snow angels.

THERE WILL BE NO NATURE BABIES DECEMBER 26TH OR JANUARY 2ND.  SEE YOU FRIDAY, JANAURY 6!

For families with school-aged children and for adults I am offering an exciting program to welcome in the new year, a Full Moon Meander at Kokanee Creek Park on Sunday, January 8th, the OWL MOON.  Come quietly to listen for the mating calls of owls who brave our winters outside, hunting mice while we sleep.

Enjoy these dark nights, when the stars seem more brilliant and the snow glistens magically in the moonlight.  I look forward to seeing you outside sometime soon.

Rachel

Here  is a link to the songs and rhymes from the indoor playgroup today.  Enjoy!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oYeXVrmkLSNI70Ys6zCtbjLd0JDswF6AKVUlm_FqMa4/edit

Our fist assignment is to learn about vulnerary and hemostatic herbs. Vulnerary herbs help tissues regrow and heal aches. Wicktionary says that “vulnerary” describes a product used to heal wounds. MedTerms says vulnerary is “A remedy used in healing or treating wounds. Any preparation, plant or drug used in the cure of wounds.”

So far, I have found these vulnerary herbs nearby: calendula flowers (not yet in bloom, but I have some dried), comfrey leaves, cottonwood buds, honey (made nearby), plantain leaves, St. Joan’s wort flower oil (made from last summer’s blooms), violet leaves, willow bark, and yarrow herb.

I have always enjoyed Yarrow, and decided to use that this month in a spit poultice. I used yarrow on my 2 year old daughter Opal’s mouth when she fell and split her lip. I showed it to the other mothers in my Nature Babies class (http://naturephilia.wordpress.com/nature_babies), who in turn used yarrow on their childrens’ wounds.

Yarrow (Achillea millefoium) grows wild in meadows, yards, and ditches. There are both introduced and native yarrows in North America. The scientific name refers to Achilles, the Greek warrior. “In Classical tradition, Homer tells us that the centaur Chiron, who conveyed herbal secrets to his human pupils, taught Achilles to use yarrow on the battle grounds of Troy.^[26] Achilles is said to have used it to stop the bleeding wounds of his soldiers. For centuries it has been carried in battle because of its magical as well as medicinal properties (from Wikipedia). The specific epithet “millefolium” means “thousand-leaved”, and refers to the feathery and minutely branched yarrow foliage.

Yarrow is not only a vulnerary herb, but is also a hemostatic herb, and something of a cure-all. Hemostatic, according to the Free Online Medical Dictionary, is “pertaining to a procedure, device, or substance that arrests the flow of blood.” Yarrow is one of the perfect wound treatments, as it seems to heal tissue, stop blood flow, prevent infection, ease pain, and grow abundantly most everywhere!

Everywhere except my yard apparently. So I’ve brought some into the house with my seedlings and hope to transplant it into a little healing herb garden this spring. I taught by son that yarrow is a helper plant, and that is why we dug some up to bring to our house. To help us when we get hurt.