Short-tailed shrew

I first spotted this little guy—I don't think it's possible to quickly tell males from females, so "guy" is generic—emerging near the cellar door from a tunnel under the snow. I didn't, of course, have my camera with me, so when the shrew went subnivean again, I shrugged and said something unprintable that we'll translate, in family-speak, as "darn." I apparently shrugged too soon. Not only, and this time I had the camera with me, did I spot it again in roughly the same area, but a couple of hours later, I noticed one dashing along the top of the snow near the suet feeder. Given the size and the dark color, I'm pretty sure it's a Short-tailed Shrew (Blarina brevicauda), and if so, this voracious predator is one of the few poisonous mammals in our bestiary. Shrews are active all year long, snow be darned, and they're continually on the move through a maze of tunnels in search of prey, from cold-dazed worms to unsuspecting mice, which they bite, poison, and then consume. It's rare to see them above-ground... well, above-snow... like this, and I wonder if this Short-tail is the same critter I spotted by the basement, which is perhaps 20 yards away. There may be a more extensive set of subnivean tunnels than I can imagine.

This is for the 30th