Meadow Voles in (Un)likely Places
- Kirby Adams
- Mar 18
- 3 min read
Sphagnum bogs bring many things to mind. The thought of a healthy bog conjures images of carnivorous plants, acidic water, gnarly conifers, dragonflies, weird grasses, and, of course, moss. Way, way down on that list, essentially not even on the list, is rodents. At least that was the case until recently, when I was treated to a look inside the daily life of a Meadow Vole.
I found myself at Spruce Flats Bog, a unique place on the summit of Laurel Mountain, a 2800-foot ridge in the Appalachians of western Pennsylvania. The bog has an interesting history as the product of logging operations and an interesting future, in that it’s likely to slowly become forest again.
Putting aside the bog’s story for another time, I was doing what one does at a bog, staring at sundews. That’s when movement caught my eye. Something was quickly scampering around in the sphagnum. It was certainly not an insect, not graceful enough to be a snake, not hoppy enough to be a frog. I figured it had to be a mammal before it even stuck its brown furry face into the open.
Here we had an Eastern Meadow Vole (Microtus pennsylvanicus). They’re not as unexpected in sphagnum bogs as you might think. They love moisture, swim quite well, and enjoy building racetracks. What? Yes, voles build tunnels and tracks through dense vegetation which they use to zoom back and forth doing important vole things. The one, and later another, that I saw at the bog were doing exactly that. They would appear in a little open pocket, chewing on something, and then grab some sphagnum (or not) and take off. They disappeared into tunnels through the dense sphagnum, reappearing in time to zip across a stick spanning a puddle, and vanish back into another tunnel. Eventually I’d lose track, and a few minutes later one would appear again. There were at least two, but I couldn’t swear under oath that there weren’t twenty of them.
This whole scene played out on a ridgetop about 45 miles east of the city of Pittsburgh. If you’ve ever driven in Pittsburgh, it involves zipping into a tunnel, emerging directly onto a bridge, dropping into another tunnel, then re-emerging to spin around in a circle and zoom off in a random direction. Since Meadow Voles predate the settlement founded by William Pitt, I have to presume they were the original city planners of Pittsburgh.
What they were doing with the clumps of sphagnum they were harvesting, I don’t know. They can eat it, but many sources say it isn’t a preferred food. There was plenty of cotton grass providing young shoots which they were actively eating and would likely be a more palatable food. It’s possible they were building or stabilizing runways with it. Whatever their mission, they were pursuing it with the gusto only a rodent with a supercharged metabolism can muster.
Bogs tend to be rather staid habitats where there’s lots of life, but nothing is being overtly lively. They’re ecologically dynamic, but feel old and rather static. Knowing that there are Meadow Voles out there, tearing up the bog, literally, is a pleasing thought. I’ve spent dozens of hours staring at this bog over the past thirty years, but had never seen a vole there before. Now, I’ll never look at it again without thinking about the voles, even if they never grace me with a look again. And the next time I see one lumbering into a bird feeding station to collect leftover seeds, I’ll think about what they do in their spare time. All because a couple voles let me into their life for a little while on a ridgetop bog where I went to find sundews.
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