WARNING: photos of dead things

On our walk this morning we saw two dead creatures. On seeing the first one Husband declared it to be a shrew.

We carried on walking and at some point I said, 'Are you sure it was a shrew? Not a vole?' Long discussion followed involving trying to persuade Google to interpret correctly our pronunciation of shrew, in order to show us one. Google insisted we meant true. 

Then we saw another one.

This one definitely had the pointy nose associated with the shrew and, on checking back - I didn't take a photo first time around as it seemed a bit gruesome - it turned out the first one did too. 

So definitely shrews. But why two dead? If they'd been attacked why didn't the predator take the body or at least make a mess of it? These both appeared relatively unscathed. 

Husband's theory is that shrews are like moles and the older one will chase the young out of the burrow to find its own way in life and it then dies of a heart attack from stress. It's a theory.

Something else born to die. As we passed a lovely young tree Husband shook his head and said, 'I wonder if this fine young ash tree realises that it's wasting its time growing when it's going to get ash dieback and die soon?'

On the left, fine young tree; on the right dying ash tree. It's okay, I stroked its trunk and told it what a fine young strong tree it was and it didn't have to go the way of its neighbours.