Voles are small, stout-bodied rodents often mistaken for common house mice, but they have a distinctly different lifestyle. Voles generally do not climb; they are poorly adapted for vertical movement. These animals are strongly terrestrial, preferring to remain on or just beneath the ground surface for nearly all their activities. Their physical makeup and primary habitat explain why they are unlikely to be found scaling walls or trees.
Vole Movement and Ground-Level Habitat
The physical structure of a vole is entirely suited for life on the ground, making climbing inefficient and difficult. Their stocky, cylindrical bodies and short limbs provide excellent leverage for digging and moving horizontally. This body type contrasts sharply with the agile frame and long, slender limbs seen in proficient climbing rodents.
Voles dedicate most of their energy to maintaining extensive networks of shallow tunnels and surface runways. These runways are easily visible paths of flattened grass, created as voles repeatedly travel the same routes between burrows and feeding areas. The tunneling systems usually remain just below the soil line, reflecting their adaptation for subterranean movement. Their locomotion is adapted for speed and navigation within dense vegetation, not for grasping and pulling themselves up vertical surfaces.
Distinguishing Voles from Climbing Rodents
Confusion about vole climbing often arises from mistaking them for other small rodents, particularly the agile house mouse. Differentiating them involves observing the animal’s tail length, a strong indicator of climbing capability. Voles possess short tails, typically less than half the length of their body, which provides little assistance for balance or grasping while climbing.
Climbing rodents, such as mice or rats, have long, slender tails nearly equal to their body length, used as a counterbalance during vertical maneuvering. Voles also differ in head shape; they have a rounded, blunt snout, smaller eyes, and ears often partially concealed by their fur. In contrast, mice have pointed snouts, larger, more prominent eyes, and notably larger ears that stand out.
Behavior provides the clearest distinction, as the location where the animal is sighted offers immediate clues. If a small rodent is spotted high up in a tree, scaling a fence, or running along rafters, it is almost certainly a climbing species like a house mouse or a young rat. Voles rarely venture more than a few inches above the ground. An observation of a rodent actively climbing vegetation or entering a home via an elevated route strongly indicates the animal is not a vole.
Identifying Common Vole Damage
Since voles do not typically climb into structures, the problems they create focus entirely on the landscape and garden. A common sign of their presence is the network of surface runways they create while traveling beneath dense grass or snow cover. These distinct, winding paths of pressed-down vegetation are often discovered when snow melts or the grass is cut short.
The most destructive evidence of vole activity relates to their feeding habits, which primarily target plant material. Voles frequently cause damage by girdling, chewing the bark completely around the base of young trees and shrubs. This removal of the bark and underlying cambium layer disrupts the plant’s ability to transport nutrients, often leading to the death of the plant above the damage point.
Voles also cause significant harm below the surface by feeding directly on bulbs, tubers, and the root systems of ornamental plants and vegetables. This subterranean feeding can destroy an entire plant from below without leaving much visible evidence until the plant begins to wilt. Identifying these two types of feeding damage—girdling and root consumption—helps confirm that the culprit is a ground-dwelling vole.