I wonder if anyone can help me identify a small furry visitor to my garden? He is about the size of a dove, is mid gray and has a tail. My first thought was that he had to be a rat but he doesn't have what I think of as a rat face - rounder and sweeter looking. Next thought was a vole or mole but I didn't think they had much of a tail. He eats the seed dropped from the feeder and I won't get near enough to get a good photo.
What critter is this?
Okay, I've just answered my own question when I saw the thread started by Kgb4013 on moles. I googled images of both moles and voles and it is a vole (they have rat like tales). I'll have to watch for signs of damage. We've had a cat visitor who no doubt was after them (I've seen two - hope they're not one of each sex!)
Artgal, you have my sympathies. Voles are my arch enemy; worse than deer and rabbits. At least you can put something over the plants to protect them from D&R, but the voles come in under the mulch and snatch plant roots like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. All you're left with is wilted leaves with the roots gnawed off and a hole.
We have voles and moles and the voles use the mole tunnels as well as their own shallower ones. Except poison, which we won't use since it is non-target specific, I don't know of a solution. Cats and raptors will catch them but it seems they breed so fast that our local predators can't keep up. Besides, here in the woods, the voles have lots of cover.
Good luck.
Voles love the cover of mulch to do their dirty deeds. I think if you remove dense mulch (usually in the form of piled leaves) that it will force the voles to look for other places to hide and feed. I had them at our last place when I let a few years of leaves collect in our natural areas for mulch. When the hostas started going downhill and I raked the leaves away I noticed the half tunnels/runs of the voles. From then on I raked yearly to keep the voles at bay.