Voles are small, stout-bodied rodents often mistaken for mice or moles, yet they cause distinct damage in lawns and gardens. These herbivores create extensive burrow systems and surface paths while searching for vegetation, roots, and bulbs. Identifying the specific signs of their activity, particularly the entrance to their home, is the first step in protecting your landscape. Understanding the size and appearance of a vole entrance helps differentiate them from other burrowing pests.
The Physical Characteristics of a Vole Entrance
The size of a vole hole is a definitive characteristic, typically measuring between 1 and 2 inches in diameter. This is roughly comparable to the size of a golf ball or slightly larger than a quarter. The entrance itself is usually neat, clean, and has a distinctly rounded or slightly oval shape.
A key feature of a vole burrow entrance is the absence of a noticeable dirt mound surrounding the opening. Unlike other digging rodents, voles generally keep their entrances open and free of excavated debris. These small, unobtrusive holes are often located in concealed areas, such as beneath dense ground cover, thick patches of grass, or under shrubs and mulch layers, providing protection from predators.
Identifying Vole Activity Above Ground
While the entrance hole provides a starting point, the most telling sign of a vole infestation is the network of surface runways they create. These shallow, visible paths crisscross the lawn, functioning as protected travel corridors between feeding areas and burrow entrances. The runways are typically 1 to 3 inches wide and look like miniature, meandering trenches through the grass.
Voles actively clip the vegetation along these runways, keeping the paths clear of obstructing grass blades and debris. This behavior leaves a distinct, clipped line often most noticeable in the spring after the snow melts. Examination of these surface trails may also reveal small, rice-sized droppings, which are brown or green and confirm an active vole presence.
Distinguishing Vole Holes from Similar Pests
Correctly identifying the source of yard damage requires differentiating vole activity from that of other common subterranean pests like moles and gophers. Voles leave small, open, neat holes that connect to their shallow surface runways and underground burrows. Their primary diet consists of plants, roots, and bark, making them herbivores.
Moles, in contrast, are insectivores whose damage is characterized by raised ridges or tunnels in the lawn, which feel spongy when stepped on. Moles also create conical or volcano-shaped mounds of soil, unlike the debris-free holes left by voles. These mounds result from the mole pushing excess soil to the surface from their deeper tunnels.
Gophers create a different signature altogether, constructing large, crescent-shaped or fan-shaped mounds of dirt that are often plugged with soil. Their holes are typically larger and deeper than a vole’s, and the plugged entrance is a distinct difference from the vole’s open burrow. Vole holes are also generally larger and more established than the tiny, often hidden holes used by common house mice or shrews, which have an insect-based diet.
Damage Associated with Vole Tunneling
The presence of vole holes and runways is significant to homeowners because of the direct damage these animals inflict on plants. Voles are voracious feeders that consume the root systems and fleshy bulbs of many garden plants from below the soil line. They are known to target bulbs, such as tulips, and can cause plants to wilt or die as their roots are severed.
During colder months, when green vegetation is scarce, voles shift their diet to the bark of young trees and shrubs. They cause an injury known as girdling, where the bark is gnawed away in an irregular pattern around the base of the plant. If voles chew a complete ring around the trunk, they cut off the flow of nutrients between the roots and the rest of the plant, which can kill a young sapling or shrub.