Avon at Wasperton 2.8.10

Decided to get a couple of hours in mid - late afternoon. Parked at the "main" car park, bottom stretch, and tried all the likely-looking swims down to the weir. Alternating between bread and my special Cajun Spice dry fried luncheon meat. Mmm, how can they resist? Well they did. As some of you know, the river's running very clear at the moment, I was able to watch my meat float down about 4'. No big white lips came up to engulf it as they're supposed to.

Just above the weir I managed to hook a nice lily pad and when I finally netted it I found this hard jelly-like thing attached to the underside. Is it a collection of fish eggs? Or something else?

The other bit of interest was that when I was getting my tackle out of the car I noticed these 2 creatures on the grass. The first was still alive but the second, as you can clearly see wasn't.

I'm hoping that someone knows what they are/were. When I got closer to the one that was alive it started to squeek, I imagine it sensed me as its' eyes weren't open yet. Probably only born in the last hour or so? Both were about 3" long. Maybe mice? The only problem is if the first was a very recent birth wouldn't it be too big for a new-born mouse?

Don't know if it helped but I gently manoevered the one which was alive into my landing net and placed it in the long grass. Probably snaffled by something before I'd even reached the river!  When I got back to the car there were 4 or 5 crows and no sign of the half eaten one.