Short-tailed shrews are amazing little native mammals and they are your best natural pest control method for your home perimeter. Just exclude them from the house by filling small foundation cracks (they can get through very small cracks) and utility service openings in the skin of your home by using low-expansion foam from any hardware store. These little dynamos are found more common than mice in some areas (small mammal surveys) and they are active year-round. They are our only venomous mammal (their Genus Blarina). Their mild venom is less hazardous to you and me than the bacteria in their bite. The venom travels in saliva along the fronts of their purple-grooved incisors to get into their buggy prey. They successfully pursue prey as large as mice and voles when necessary. Look for them under brush piles, logs, rocks, and in the galleries under thick accumulations of seed husks under your feeding stations. Still in your basement after closing holes in your home's skin? Peanut butter is a good bait for snap traps in the home. Enjoy your local shrews. Remember, they bite! Tom Bain Central Ohio Clayey Till Plain Delaware, Ohio -----Original Message----- From: Ohio birds [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steve Cagan Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 9:09 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [Ohio-birds] OT- domestic small mammal sighting Hi all, OK, OK, itıs not a bird, but I think it might be of interest to some. Here in our Cleveland Heights house, weıve had some mice recently. We dispatch them with a traditional snap trap. But a few days ago, Beth saw a mouse in the basement, I set a few traps and yesterday morning we had one in a trap. But it looked wrongtail too short, eyes too small, snout too pointy, ears too small, too gray... This morning we had another animal like thisIım quite sure what we had were Short-tailed Shrews. Itıs a life home invader for us! Think we could interest some owls??? Best wishes, Steve Cagan Cleveland heioghts, Cuyahoga County -------------------------------------------- Steve Cagan, photographer [log in to unmask] www.stevecagan.com www.pbase.com/stevecagan www.stevecagan.blogspot.com 216-932-2753 (USA) ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]