This 1 February 2017 video shows a rare water shrew at a camera trap on Marken (traditionally an island, now a peninsula) in the Netherlands.
It is in a pit, made artificially to enable grass snakes to winter.
Which animals spent time in these pits, according to camera trap images? Many wood mice, stoats, a greater white-toothed shrew.
And also this water shrew. This rare species had only been seen once on Marken, in 2008.
Shouldn’t the water shrew worry about a grass snake being in the same pit as it? Not really now, as in winter the snakes sleep. Even in spring, as grass snakes become active, they only rarely eat mammals, preferring amphibians.
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