Signs of Voles in Your Yard

common vole sitting over grass in a yard

Well-worn runways snaking in your turf, round burrow openings, chewed trees, and damaged plants are all signs that voles might be taking over the yard and your greens are in trouble. 

But to be 100% sure it is the voles you are dealing with and not another lawn critter, you’ll need to do some investigating. We’ll walk you through all the telltale signs of vole presence, plus other pests to consider.

What are Voles?

Voles are small rodents that live in forests, meadows, and grasslands but often colonize lawns and gardens. They eat roots, stems, leaves, tree bark, seeds, beans, and fruits and can severely damage landscapes and crops. 

Voles are active year-round, day and night, underground and above the surface. 

They are also very prolific. If they are in your yard, you must find out fast because they can cause a lot of damage. Here are the main signs you have voles in your yard.

8 Signs of Vole Presence in Your Yard

1. Winding Runways on the Lawn

vole run pattern
Vole Runways
Photo Credit: Jim Barton / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0

A network of narrow, zig-zag ruts with scalped and dead grass that snake across the lawn are a telltale sign of vole presence. 

Vole runways are easy to recognize:

  • They look like ditches or crevices, 1 ½ to 2 inches wide and about 1 inch below the soil level.
  • The trails twist across the lawn like corkscrew willow branches.
  • The grass inside the runs is short-clipped, and the ground is compacted by voles scurrying between their burrows and feeding areas. 
  • Voles typically build their runways in areas with thick ground cover (tall grass, thick mulch).

Dr. Tim Gibb, an entomologist at Purdue University, says some vole trails are covered with soil from their tunnels. “Voles also spread excavated dirt from the burrow system in the runway, resulting in a dirt-bare path in some areas.” 

Surface runways are specific to meadow voles and prairie voles. Pine voles, also known as woodland voles, mainly use underground burrows to travel.

Moles vs. voles trails: Moles’ runways look like raised ridges, while vole runs are flat, open trenches built at the soil level or slightly lower.

2. Burrow Entrances

vole hole in a meadow
Photo Credit: Ralf Urner / Adobe Stock Free / License

Neat, round holes about the width of golf balls visible in your yard are typical entrances to vole burrows.

For the unsuspecting homeowner, vole burrow openings look like random, round holes, 1 to 1.5 inches wide, that seem to drop into a black void. But there’s nothing random about them. 

These openings are placed along voles trails (often where the trails end), connecting the voles’ underground homes with their feeding grounds.

Vole vs. rat openings: The entrances of rat burrows are also round and well-defined but twice as large (2 to 4 inches wide, about the size of a baseball). 

3. Chewed Bark on Trees and Shrubs

Photo Credit: Charlie From Bristol / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0

Peeled bark on trees and shrubs with tiny teeth marks is often caused by a hungry vole.

When vegetation is scarce in winter, voles survive by eating tubers, seeds, and tree bark. Here’s how vole damage looks on trees and shrubs:

  • Peeled strips of bark at the base of trees and shrubs with tiny, chisel-like grooves (their teeth marks) on the pale, exposed wood. 
  • A continuous belt of wood with no bark on it. This is called girdling and can kill the tree. 
  • Entire branches stripped of bark, looking as clean as toothpicks on low-growing shrubs, such as junipers. 

Vole marks vs. rabbit marks: Voles leave irregular marks, ⅛ inches wide and ⅜ inches long – about the size of a grain of dry rice. Rabbits’ gnaw marks are larger, about the width of a spoon’s tip, more uniform, and appear higher on the tree trunk.

4. Wilted Grass and Damaged Plants

Chewed seedlings, mysteriously wilted grass, and toppled plants are signs of vole damage.

Voles chew on the stems and leaves of grass and seedlings. Sometimes, they only eat the stems and topple the plants, making their damage easily confused with that of cutworms

Note: A vole-cut stem has a clean, sharp cut at a roughly 45-degree angle, often with a pointed tip.

Voles also munch on the roots, bulbs, tubers, and rhizomes, resulting in wilted grass, vegetables, and ornamentals. If you dig the soil under a wilted plant attacked by voles, you’ll see roots lacking their root hairs (essential for nutrient absorption) or half-eaten tubers and bulbs. 

Another sign of vole presence is plants that suddenly collapse while still being green and healthy.

“One day, a plant will be beautiful, and a few days later, it will have fallen over with the roots gnawed off,” says Ruth-Ellen Dandurand, extension master gardener at the University of Vermont. 

5. Vole Poop

Brown or green rice grain-like droppings in surface runways are usually vole poop and indicate an active trail.

Voles are voracious feeders, eating their weight in plants daily, so their active runways are often sprinkled with droppings. Vole poop is tiny and oblong, looking like rice grain, and has a brown or green color. 

The presence of droppings and fresh plant cuttings is a sure sign you’re looking at an active runway on which you can install traps or baits

6. Vole Nests

vole nests in a yard
Photo Credit: Dr Mary Gillham Archive Project / Flickr / CC BY 2.0

Vole nests look like 6- to 8-inch globes of dry leaves and grass. 

Vole nests are made of dry grass and leaves. They look like globular, closed bird nests and are very well hidden. Most are built in shallow tunnels, but some are built on the surface in tall grass, logs or stumps, under shrubs, old boards, and other types of cover. 

Voles nests vs. mice and shrew nests: Deer mice and shrews also build nests on the surface but are smaller (about 4 to 6 inches wide) and cup-shaped, often opened on top.

7. Vole Tracks in Snow or Mud

side by side comparison of vole track front and hind
Photo Credit: National Park Service created using Canva Pro

When voles travel through snow or mud, they leave behind narrow ditches like a kid dragging behind a stick. You also might notice tiny paw tracks on the bare, wet soil or snow. Hind paws leave five-fingered marks about half an inch long, while their front paw tracks only show four fingers and are 11/32 inch long (just over one-third of an inch).

8. Vole Sightings

Voles are small, chubby rodents with brownish-gray fur.

Voles hide in vegetation or under the snow and are most active at dusk and night. Therefore, they are rarely seen, but it can happen. 

If you spot this little critter, you’ll see a small rodent that looks like a field mouse but is chubbier. Voles have longer, brownish-gray fur and shorter tails (about a third of the body length). They have beady black eyes, small rounded ears partially covered in fur, and tiny legs.

During summer, you might spot them as a ripple mowing through small grass.

FAQ

How do you repair vole damage on your lawn?

To repair the vole damage on your lawn:

  • Rake the vole poop and debris on vole runways and areas with wilted grass.
  • Add good-quality topsoil and level the vole trails with a rake.
  • Spread grass seed.
  • Apply a starter fertilizer and water daily until germination.

How to get rid of voles?

You’ll get rid of voles faster if you combine several of these methods:

  • Install vole traps
  • Spread poisoned baits
  • Use vole repellents
  • Attract vole predators

How do you prevent voles from damaging your plants?

To prevent vole damage, make your yard less attractive and harder to inhabit for voles:

  • Remove weeds, woodpiles, and yard debris.
  • Mow your lawn regularly to the proper height for your turf type.
  • Clear away mulch and leaves from around tree trunks.
  • Establish vegetation-free zones around valuable crops.

Don’t Let Voles Destroy Your Lawn!

Voles move fast, and so should you. If you spot signs of voles on your lawn, act now. Use the LawnStarter app or website, find a pest control pro, and get rid of these damaging critters before they chew your grass.

Main Image Credit: David / Adobe Stock Free / License

Sinziana Spiridon

Sinziana Spiridon

Sinziana Spiridon is an outdoorsy blog writer with a green thumb and a passion for organic gardening. When not writing about weeds, pests, soil, and growing plants, she's tending to her veggie garden and the lovely turf strip in her front yard.