Wild West Yorkshire nature diary, Friday 11th June 1999
AFTER FINDING the litter of voles in the heap last week I'm extra careful as I remove compost to put on the vegetable beds. I pick out a tennis ball-sized clump of dry, shredded leaves. Five or six small, pinkish-grey babies the size of cocktail sausages fall out and hide themselves in the compost in the wheel barrow.
They have elongated snouts and are still naked, with wrinkly skin. They remind me of Naked Mole-rats. As with the voles, I carefully put these warm little bodies back in their nest and put the old box on top in the hope that the mother will find them. I'm pretty sure they are Common Shrews.
AFTER FINDING the litter of voles in the heap last week I'm extra careful as I remove compost to put on the vegetable beds. I pick out a tennis ball-sized clump of dry, shredded leaves. Five or six small, pinkish-grey babies the size of cocktail sausages fall out and hide themselves in the compost in the wheel barrow.
They have elongated snouts and are still naked, with wrinkly skin. They remind me of Naked Mole-rats. As with the voles, I carefully put these warm little bodies back in their nest and put the old box on top in the hope that the mother will find them. I'm pretty sure they are Common Shrews.