Two Native Mice

     Two species of mice native to the Middle Atlantic States, and throughout much of North America, are white-footed mice, which are nearly identical to deer mice, and meadow voles.  Both these kinds of mice are handsome, clean, active the year around and mostly nocturnal.  Their brown fur blends them into their surroundings as a protection against being seen by predators.  And both species make nests, store food for winter use and are preyed on by many kinds of larger animals.
     White-footed mice really are beautiful, delightful little creatures that live in forests, wood lots and older suburban areas with their many trees.  But they seldom enter homes, preferring, instead, to live in natural surroundings, however hazardous to them.  They are warm-brown on top and white below with white feet.  They have large ears and big, black eyes that protrude appealingly from their faces.
     White-foots are solitary little critters, and territorial.  Each mouse has a one-acre home range in a wooded habitat where it lives and gets its food.  Each mouse builds a few protective nests in wooded areas, including in hollows in trees and tree stumps, under fallen logs, in log piles and brush piles, underground and, because they can climb, in old squirrel and bird nests.  They build a roof of fine plant material on a bird nursery and chew a small entrance in the side of it.  These mice are snug and warm in the homes they create and females give birth in them.
     Each female white-foot gives birth to three or four litters a year with two to eight young in each one, depending on the age and health of the mother.  They babies are born blind, helpless and naked, which is good because it keeps them from wandering out of the nest and into the dangerous world too soon.  But the youngsters soon mature and leave their nursery. 
     White-foots gather seeds, nuts, fungi and other foods for winter use.  They store it in their nests and in nearby, hidden caches.
     White-footed mice have many enemies through the year.  They are preyed on by foxes, hawks, owls, weasels, mink, certain kinds of snakes and other kinds of predatory animals.  The average life span of a mouse in the wild is about a year.
     Meadow voles are a larger, chunkier mouse than the white-foots.  And these voles live in grassy meadows, roadsides and abandoned fields, places where they don't compete with white-foots for space and food.  Voles live mostly in burrows along country roads in cropland that is constantly cultivated.  Roadside burrows are the only places among cultivated fields where they can live without being plowed under and, perhaps, killed by farm equipment.
     These voles are brown all over and have small eyes and tails.  They live in cozy, chewed-grass nests in underground burrows, or under hay bales, boards or tussocks of tall grass.  In winter they make nests on top of the ground under a covering of snow.  When the snow melts away, one can see vole homes and the corridors chewed by the mice through the grass, a network of runways that were under the snow and connected those mouse homes to feeding areas.                 
     Female meadow voles produce several litters of young a year.  But they don't have litters in mid-winter.  They make nests of finely-chewed grass in underground burrows where they deliver four to six naked, blind babies per litter.  Obviously, many voles a year are produced and there could be as many as 30 voles in an acre of abundant food and cover.  That makes ample food for foxes, hawks, owls, coyotes, house cats and a host of other predatory animals.  Any kind of rodent can overrun its habitat and quickly run out of food if predators didn't catch and eat most of them.  Those predators serve a valuable function in controlling rodent, including mouse, numbers.  
     Meadow voles eat grasses, sedges, hay, seeds, roots, bulbs and tender, young bark.  They store some seeds, roots and bulbs in or near their grassy homes for winter use.
     Interestingly, some queen bumble bees start colonies of their offspring in protective underground vole homes of chewed grass.  There they store honey and pollen to feed the first larval bees until they become adult female workers that carry on the work of the colony, including feeding successive larvae, while each queen only lays eggs.   
     White-footed mice and meadow voles are attractive little creatures that have a big impact on their respective habitats.  They feed a lot of larger animals, but these mice are interesting in themselves.