We came home last night to find a dead rodent deposited in the middle of our front lawn. Perhaps it was meant as a gift to our cat, an indoor cat who tries her best to interact through the window with all the neighborhood cats--as well as birds, bugs, etc.--outside.

We looked it up in our mammal field guide: Short-tailed Shrew. I picked it up by its short tail and gently laid it under the ferns at the edge of the lawn, for it to hopefully be found and carried off in the night. The field guide tells us that this shrew has a poisonous bite, a surprising defense for such a minuscule creature.

Intact but dead shrew--
sacrifice for the cat gods,
those merciless ones?