Corona Wildlife Diary: Day Fifty-seven

Day Fifty-seven

"From Wednesday people will be allowed to go outside and take unlimited amounts of exercise. It could be playing a round of golf, it could be swimming in an outdoor pond, it could be angling, going fishing"

While watching the TV news on Monday I was intrigued to learn that from today we can now leave our homes and go golfing, angling or swimming in an outdoor pond. I have no intention of ever golfing or angling. To be honest, the world beyond the end of the cul-de-sac still doesn't feel all that safe to me, no matter how 'alert' I am. But the reporter's suggestion of swimming in an outdoor pond. Hmmmm....

This morning I grabbed my beach towel, found the mask and snorkel in the back of the cupboard and went exploring in the garden pond.

I was hoping I'd come face to face with a newt, dragonfly larvae or maybe the Grass Snake and it would inspire today's diary but in the end I just got a faceful of pondweed.

This wasn't the first time I've been getting up close and personal with my garden pond in the last twelve hours. There have been comparisons made in the past few days of our current situation and the plot of the movie Jaws. In Spielberg's 1975 movie, the mayor of the seaside town sends people back into the sea, despite the fact that the monster is still out there (here). It's one of my favourite films, so last night I dug out my Jaws DVD. As I watched the film it inspired me to write today's diary about another aquatic monster terrorising the ponds and shallow streams of Sussex. But if you want to find a Water Shrew…you’re gonna need a smaller boat.

Water Shrews weigh 15g and measure just 16cm (and for that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing). Unlike other shrews they have an amazing ability to swim and hunt underwater. They’re covered in dense fur – vital insulation against the cold and wet. This sleek wetsuit also traps air bubbles, transforming the shrew into a furry Aero helping it stay buoyant. Powerful, extra-hairy hind feet propel this tiny torpedo through the water.

(Photo by Derek Middleton)

Water Shrews and Great White Sharks have a common identification feature which sets them apart from their close relatives. They both have a striking demarcation between their dark upperparts and their white underparts. Looking from above, their black backs blend with the pond bottom or seabed. From below their pale bellies make them invisible in the sunlit water. It’s a submarine survival strategy that helps conceal both hunters and hunted. And the Water Shrew is both.

(I photographed this dead Water Shrew  a few years back. Looks like it's recreating the iconic movie poster for Jaws)

With sharp, red-tipped fangs, shrew’s jaws are as fearsome as any shark’s. But the Water Shrew has a trick up its teeth. It’s Britain’s only venomous mammal. When it bites, it injects a stupefying saliva which subdues its victims. In Jaws, the grizzled skipper Quint (Robert Shaw) relates the chilling true tale of the torpedoed WWII cruiser Indianapolis, which sank leaving hundreds of sailors adrift in shark-infested waters. Well, my mate Barry was once bitten by a Water Shrew in Newhaven and his finger went all tingly for about two hours. OK, it doesn’t exactly compare to Quints’s tale about being bitten in half by a shark but the fact that a tiny shrew can make such an impact on a human is pretty impressive.

(Fantastic! - Richard Cobden read this blog...and sent me this image!!)

Slice open a dead shrew’s stomach and rummage inside and you’ll find bits of beetle legs, snail shells, and fishbones. They are relentless, frenetic hunters. If the shrew goes without a meal for more than an hour it will die. What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little shrews. Between April and September the mating of the shrew can produce 2-3 litters of 3-15 young. They live a fast, brief life. Few of them will survive for more than a year.

So, late last night I turned off the DVD, grabbed a torch and went out in the garden. I pulled up a chair and sat staring at the pond, waiting for a shrew to strike. I'm all out of Apricot Brandy but there's still some tequila left.
I poured a drink and sat thinking about my next move. Although we're being told 'the beaches (and beauty spots) are open'  there's still only one place that I want to go.

(Click here to sing-along)

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