Northern Short-Tailed Shrew

Dunder and Blitzen were sitting on the back of a stuffed chair watching this little guy.  I figured it was a vole.  Voles are active in the winter time making tunnels under the snow to den and find seeds  to eat.  Voles are sociable and there were two of these little guys tunneling up and down through the snow on the deck.  A flock of goldfinches had stopped by earlier and tossed about sunflower and Niger seeds - just what a little vole would eat.  It's tail was too short to be a mouse.  This had to be a vole.  When I downloaded the pictures and blew them up - they were pics of shrews!  That posed some problems.  Why were there two shrews when they are notoriously solitary creatures (mating season starts in April but maybe there are exceptions).  I knew shrews didn't hibernate but I hardly expected them to be this active - they handle the cold months in the Northwoods by shrinking their body mass, caching food, and going into a torpor.  Shrews are insectivores - what was this guy looking for?  A quick google look-up and I found out.  By the way - don't try to catch shrews.  I read that a shrew's bite is poisonous (enough to kill a vole but not a person) and they have truly odorous scent glands (probably the reason Orion would catch them but not eat them).