crazy wildlife: shrews, and eggs

[norfolklass]

last weekend I found a dead pygmy shrew lying belly up right in the middle of a piece of plastic. it was completely intact but there was an incriminating white whisker right next to it (cat? fox?)
then I found another dead shrew this weekend :( this time a common shrew but again, lying upside down in the middle of my onion bed, but no footprints anywhere so no sign of foul play.
I know they're not supposed to taste very nice so if something caught them it obviously didn't want to eat them... I'm sure they don't live very long at all, so do you think they're just dying off in the cold weather? but why would they be out in the open?!?

secondly, I turned over a molehill and there was quite a big chicken's egg in the middle of it! I don't know how big moles are in comparison to eggs but I do know that a close neighbour has chickens and moles. could a mole have stolen an egg and moved it underground from one plot to another?!? it seems much more likely to be something else but I can't think what! a fox would have killed the chickens... do rats steal and hide eggs?

very confused!

[norfolklass]

[Robert_Brenchley]

Shrews live a year to a year and a half, and mostly die off in the sutumn. This could be no more than the annual mortality.

[star]

Shrews apparantly do taste bitter, but I had 2 cats who regularly caught and ate them :-\.

They must have been conassuers (?sp), as no cat I have had since will touch them.

Foxs will possibly take an egg and bury it, I think a chicken egg would be far too big for a mole to carry.

[Eristic]

I think a chicken egg would be far too big for a mole to carry.

And it would get stuck in the tunnel. ;D

[star]

 ;D ;D ;D I hadn't thought about that.....!! ;D

[calendula]

bizarre, but if the egg was partially buried then I wouldn't put it past a 'mission impossible' squirrel  ;D

[norfolklass]

thanks folks! wish I could set up a webcam ;D
forgot to say: found the egg on Saturday â€" left it sitting on a tuft of grass and when I went back on Sunday it was gone, so something had it!