Any idea what made these tiny mammal droppings?

[vole-woman]

I found these inside the tracking cartridge when I went to check my mink raft yesterday. They're too small and the wrong colour to be field vole, but I don't know my mice or shrews very well. I couldn't make out any tracks, so whatever it was, it was pretty damn light!

Any thoughts?

[The Woodman]

Have you got Water Shrews where your raft is?

[vole-woman]

I don't know. Mark (WAB member) once said he thought he'd seen water shrew prints on a cartidge I showed him. I thought they liked very specific conditions, eg running water and a certain type of shrimp. Or did I dream that?

[The Woodman]

According to Bouchardy and Moutou in Observing British and European Mammals say that water shrews can be found in a large number of habitats, usually close to water but sometimes in damp meadows and individuals have been trapped several kilometres from the nearest body of water.

The 4th ed. of the Mammals Handbook says the habitat is mainly the banks of clear, fast flowing, unpolluted rivers and streams, but also ponds, lakes, canals and drainage ditches, and in reed beds fens , marshes and bogs. Often found in man-made habitats including gardens, especially numerous in water cress beds.. In NW Scotland occurs amongst boulders on rocky beaches. Occurs sporadically far from water(up to 3km) in deciduous woodland, hedgerows and grassland. First mammal to be found on the moon. (I made the last bit up.)

The same weighty tome says that its droppings have a granular consistency, similar but larger than those of the common shrew (up to 10 mm mostly greater than 5mm), black in colour when wet, pale grey/brown when dry; frequently contain whitish fragments of freshwater crustaceans. Often deposited in middens on rocks beside streams, at tunnel entrances or in surface runways through vegetation.

Bang and Dahlstrom only refer to shrew droppings, being very small, 2-4 mm long and 1-2 mm across.

Lawrence and Brown in Mammals of Britain say that the droppings are black and cylindrical and give no size.

The droppings in your images are very small, less than the quoted sizes for the water shrew so my thoughts would be along the lines of common shrew.

The Mammal Handbook says the droppings of the Pygmy Shrew are "Similar to those of the common shrew but smaller, and not easily distinguishable."

I'm now tempted to go and trap a shrew to look at it's droppings but I remember piles of them in the nest chamber of Longworths in the past so I'll leave it for now!

[vole-woman]

Well well! So there could be water shrews in the canal (it's very clean because it's a nature reserve) but you think the droppings are more likely to be common shrew (or maybe even pygmy?)

Thanks for all that. I feel more conversant with shrew culture now.

[The Woodman]

Some further notes on Shrew droppings!

In Gibsons "Wild Animals", he says that Water Shrew droppings are "tapered droppings to 5mm long", Common Shrew "droppings 2-4mm long" and Pygmy Shrew "droppings to 4mm long".

Despite the relative size of the beasts, I think it would be very hard to ID those from Common or Pygmy but still am tended to to go with either of those.

Having had another close scrutiny of your images, I think the droppings are too small for Water Shrew but will keep an open mind. I've never seen many Water Shrews in the wild, can think of two occassions when I watched two individuals repeatedly entering a river near me, catching unidentified invertebrates underwater and bringing them back onto the bank to eat. They were both undisturbed by my close presence and carried on as if on a mission.

The skull of a Water Shrew is easy to ID because the teeth have small red tips to them. It is said that they paralize larger prey with toxic saliva but that didn't stop next doors cat killing them and bringing them home!

Keep your eyes peeled when you're at the back of Tescos!

[vole-woman]

Wow! Re the red tips, I thought that was all shrews - I've been labouring under a misapprehension. When I was a child I used to stay for the holidays with a family in Somerset (blissful days!) and they had a family of barn owls in their garden. We dissected some of the pellets and found quite a lot of red-tipped shrew teeth. This was in the early 80s, in Watchet.

I've never seen a water shrew,though Shirl sees them when she's out at Cromford looking for voles.

Sorry to hear about the cat.

[The Woodman]

You're right about the red tips, vole woman, My post was poorly worded.

Easier to ID because of the size and the red tips.

[shirl]

Yes, the water, pygmy and common shrew all have red tipped teeth. As for the droppings, difficult to tell from the photo really, you might get a better idea with a quick disection and see what remains there are in them. Usually though they are grey/black when fresh and a more lighter grey when dry, oval shaped with the tips a bit blunt ended, larger droppings than common shrew. The water shrew lives in many aquatic habitats even slow/still areas such as canals - not seen our canal water shrews for a few weeks but they were there last year and earlier this year. Never seen a footprint though, still I will keep looking

Shirl

[vole-woman]

I'll have a closer look next time, if they're there again. But the consensus is shrew of some kind?