. Almost every year I find a dead wood shrew or house shrew. Usually they are undamaged and often they lay exposed in the middle of a bicycle or walking path. What’s up with that?   Shrews are not mice at all. Mice are rodents and shrews are insectivores, just like hedgehogs and moles. But they don’t just eat insects, they actually eat any animal they can get their hands on, sometimes even mice and frogs bigger than themselves. Shrews are unbelievably tough supercritters. They are lightning fast and always hungry. Their metabolism is so fast that they have to eat every few hours or they will die instantly. Their brains and some organs shrink in winter to conserve energy, but it still remains a mystery to me how they survive the winter. Their bite is venomous and most predators except owls do not eat them because they are so unappetising. When the young are a bit bigger, one gently bites the base of mom’s tail and the rest does …