and I'm not talking one of the kids either. Last Sunday, while sleeping soundly and dreaming, this odd squeaking/clicking noise started to invade my dream. I slowly woke up and felt like I was still somewhat in dream land, yet realized I was awake. SOMETHING was making that noise and it wasn't just a dream. It sounded like one of the bats I hear in the summer evenings. NO...please don't let it be a bat. The sun was just starting to give the room that gentle morning glow and I could see into our master bathroom from the bed. The cats had something. Eewww. I drug my butt up and stumbled into the bathroom, flipped on the light, and a small, mouse-like creature was making that noise. I pushed the cats away from it, and in my sleep deprived stupor started chasing the little critter around the bathroom trying to catch it. I was getting aggravated after several attempts to bend over and catch it. My poor fibro cursed body just couldn't move and bend fast enough to get it, and Hubby was blissfully snoring his freaking head off in bed, unaware of the torture my body was going through, and the crisis of a real live wild animal running around our bathroom.
Stupid thing is, when I said I was trying to catch it, I was really trying to catch it...with my bare hands!! What an idiot. You see, I have taken many a mouse away from the cats by grabbing them by the tail. Mice don't tend to be able to turn back around and bite if you have them by the end of the tail and that was the approach I was using with this critter, except, it was no mouse. I had no freaking idea what it was, but it's tail was very short, and it was tiny, and it didn't have a very mouse-like looking nose. After many trips of walking in circles around the bathroom trying to catch it as it scurried around the base of the walls, it went under the bathroom towel we use as a bath mat. I grabbed it up and the thing just started biting the crap out of the towel. Thank goodness it was in the towel and I didn't do the "grab the tail" technique. About this same time, all the light, noise, and probably the fact I was cussing like a sailor, woke up Hubby. He walks into the bathroom and says "What the hell is that?!". I had no idea, but it wasn't even 6 a.m. and I wanted to go back to bed. I took the critter into the laundry room, put it into a small clear pet carrier I had in there, placed in the cabinet over the washer, and tried to go back to sleep. My thought was the kids could let it loose in the woods when they got up.
As I tried to get back to sleep, all I kept thinking was "What the hell is that thing???". It definitely sounded like a bat, but thank goodness it wasn't. I LOVE bats, they are such cool critters, but I don't want one in my bathroom at 6 a.m., or anytime of the day really. I got back up out of bed, went in to see the critter and get a better look. Definitely not a mouse. It had a strange looking nose/mouth, tiny almost non-existent ears, little beady eyes, and a weird tail. Sad part was, the critter wasn't doing well. I think the cats played a bit rough with it and it was dying. Hmmmm....shrew?? That was my first thought. Google search here I come.
WARNING-Here is what the critter looked like and at this point it had died, but I had a mystery to solve. Don't look if you are squeamish about tiny, dead critters.
After an extensive web search of all of ten minutes, I figured out it is indeed a shrew. I think perhaps a North American Least Shrew? I'm not sure what kind of shrew, but most definitely a shrew. You see, from the wonders of google I found out shrews have five toes on their front feet, instead of 4 like mice. Yep, I counted it's dead little toes. I'm weird that way, and in a lot of other ways. I didn't go as far to see if it is a boy or girl, but I image I could have told. It was tiny.
Here is it laying next to a quarter...another major EWWWWW moment for the squeamish.
Look how tiny that thing is!
Let's all say it together. Ewwwwwww........SHREW!
Here is the kicker, I found out that at least 3 species of shrews in North America have venomous bites....you heard me VENOMOUS!! What the hell was I thinking trying to grab it with my bare hands!!! Just with my luck if it would have bit me, it would have been one of the three venomous ones. I guess it wouldn't have killed me, just been a nasty reaction at the wound. YET, knowing me, I would have had a severe allergic reaction and had to explain in the ER that I had grabbed a wild critter in my bathroom.
Now, what I want to know, how the hell did that thing get in my house??? I know we are in the country and mice have been an issue over the years, but how does a shrew get in the house?? I read that the are carnivores/insectivores and will eat mice. With my luck, it was stalking a mouse and followed it into the house. Or perhaps it was trying to eat many of the millions of lady bugs that have invaded my bathroom and bedroom. OH, and maybe why I first thought "Bat" was because they use clicking and other noises as echo-location....just like bats.
Once again....EWWWWWW, SHREW!!!
