Tiny Masked Shrew by my foot.

Funny story. Carol and I went for a walk on the Carson Tail at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Headquarters yesterday afternoon. The day was struggling, with a bit of momentary sun here and there to lift it from its late October gloom, and rain threatening on the horizon. The maples are passing fast, and the oaks this year, most places, are going direct from green to brown. Still, it was good to be out. A Hairy Woodpecker flew ahead of us for a ways, until it was displaced from a particularly attractive (apparently…and to woodpeckers) dead branch tip by a Red-bellied Woodpecker. We don’t see many Red-bellieds here in Southern Maine, compared to Hairy and Downy that is, so that was a special.

We turned the corner by the overlook at the junction of Branch Brook and the Marriland River, where they join to become the Little River, in time to see 4 people…two couples, old and young…clustered around something on the trail, clearly excited about it. As we approached, they were debating what it was…mouse? mole? vole? They moved on and left their find to us. It was tiny and it was fast, but it did not seem to be going anywhere in particular. It certainly was not trying to get away. It scampered repeatedly across the trail and burled under and ran over the litter of fallen maple and oak leaves, as though looking frantically for something it had lost…its house keys perhaps, or a coat button. And it was strange. It was mouse like, but had tiny ears and a long mobile, almost prehensile, snout. Its tail and nose were both too long by far for a mole or vole, and it was so small…barely as wide as quarter, and only two quarters long, not counting the tail. We stood watching it, and I, of course was trying to get a shot of it as it zipped around under us.

Then suddenly it scampered up on my shoe and looked for a way up my pant leg. I was wearing field pants cinched with elastic around the ankle so It was defeated there, but then on its way down, it found one of the ventilation holes in my Crocs and nipped inside next to my foot…right inside my shoe. Perhaps that is an added benefit of the box toe on the Crocs: Room for visiting rodents. Fortunately, it popped back out and went off to explore the leaves beyond the edge of the trail. Carol was finding all this very exciting, but she was nearly and clearly, as they say these days, creeped out by the creature’s familiarity with my pants and shoes and wanted none of it for herself. She was rapidly backing way down the trail. The creature, however, apparently liked the experience in my shoe, because it came back for more, exploring several of the Croc holes before we moved on…though it never got right inside again. Maybe my socks smelled like insects? It kept me very busy, because, of course, I wanted a picture of it with my shoe. Priorities you know. And I got it going in…or thinking about it…but I never got it coming out…that would have been a picture! I think it would have played with us as long as we wanted to stay there, but I had visions of it actually getting caught inside my shoe, and hurt, so we moved on.

Of course I wanted to know what it was, so I did some research when we got home, first in Kaufman’s New England Guide, and then, when I could not find an exact match there, on-line. Kaufman’s got me as close as Shrew…not mouse, or mole, or vole…but certainly some kind of shrew. Eventually, by process of elimination, and consulting mammal lists for Maine, I narrowed it down to Masked Shrew…which is logical, as the Masked Shrew is the most common shrew in North America…and why should my first shrew encounter be anything other than the most common? The shrew population in New England is reputed to be among the most numerous of any mammal, but they are very rarely seen in daylight (though they are active around the clock), so they are, in fact, very rarely seen at all. They live among us, but we know it not 🙂

Last night, as I lay contemplating the writing of this story when I should have been sleeping, it occurred to me to wonder how “shrew” came to have its meaning, its monumental Shakespearean meaning, of “bad tempered woman.” I mean, there was nothing bad tempered about the Masked Shrew…on the contrary it was friendly and almost too cute for its own good. I am not sure but what, if it had gotten in my shoe once more, I would have been tempted to bring it home 🙂

Research. It turns out that shrew is a pure English word that seems to have sprung into existence, in either its rodent or anthropomorphic sense, about the time Shakespeare used it. There is some theory that moles and shrews were thought to have a venom that produced bad temper in women when bitten…and I suspect, from Carol’s reaction, that just being bitten by a shrew would be enough to produce bad temper in most women even without venom…but I simply can not imagine the shrew I encountered biting anyone…let alone a woman grown enough to cause her husband trouble. There has to be more to the story than that…and I certainly suspect the shrew has gotten a bad rap! One wonders, in fact, if Shakespeare coined the “bad tempered woman” usage based on his own dramatic conceit and the physical characteristics of a particular actor assigned the first role…perhaps that prehensile, unattractively mobile and narrow nose? The shrew is certainly in the habit of poking it where it does not belong, if my Crocs are any indication. Of course, we shall never know. Lost in the mists of time and among the many myths of Shakespeare.

It is Sunday, so of course, you are expecting the spiritual side of all this (or at least I am). I hope I have conveyed some of my delight in the shrew encounter. It filled me with quiet amazement…flooded me with pleasurable wonder. Exactly the opposite of bad temper…the shrew gave me the inestimable gift of good temper. Such a treat! You don’t often encounter wildlife that is willing to climb into your shoe. That sense of familiarity, of intimacy, is very special, and I feel wonderfully privileged to have been included. And that, my friends, is the pure essence of spirituality…the sense of being privileged to be included in something wonderful. Or that is what I think. Thank you, Masked Shrew, and I can only hope this piece does at least a little to undo the harm Shakespeare did your reputation. 🙂