Water Shrew at St Mary's Fields meadow

On a Sunday I have been going for an early morning walk again with my oldest friend, Leon, and we have been slowly stretching the distance I can manage to around four miles or so by walking down to the River Cherwell (a tributary of the Thames) and enjoying the weekly changes in the meadowland beyond the St Mary's church there which has been turned or transformed rather into a natural reserve featuring much flora and fauna of local interest. Struggling to identify many wild flowers and yet enjoying the sightings of birds from Buzzards to Red Kites and chaffinches and wrens and butterflies abounding from Gatekeepers to Meadow Brown and this Sunday many Marble Whites. Last Sunday however we spotted a rare treat and saw a shrew in the reed bed of the little dried up brook running across the field and stood long enough for him to pop back out so I could take an admittedly rather poor photo or two. It was enough to check him or her later and assuming we would have seen a common creature, I was delighted to discover he appeared to be a Water Shrew which is the rarest of the three possibilities (The common, the pygmy and the water). Beautiful little thing . . . . . he's there if you look close enough!