A dead shrew

A long walk along the beach and the only thing of interest that I found was a dead common shrew lying in the grass! As you can see, someone has stood upon him and his gentleman's parts and various other innards have burst out from his rear end. I don't think that this was the cause of his death, shrews are generally too fast and quick witted to be stood upon. I think it more likely that he has starved to death. Shrews have a very high metabolic rate and need to feed almost continuously. They feed mainly on insects, earthworms and other soil invertebrates and these are hard to come by at the moment as we have had very little rain of late and the soil is very dry and rock hard.

If you look closely you will see that the shrew is itself acting as a meal for other creatures. There is a blood sucking tick on his back and a fly has already laid an egg in his eye; this will of course hatch into a maggot which, along with dozens more, will recycle the shrew, turning its flesh into more flies! Some of those flies will in their turn be eaten by other shrews. The eternal cycle of life keeps on rotating!