In winter, I see many clumps of dead leaves among twigs in deciduous trees, often several in one tree, in woodlands and older suburban areas in the Middle Atlantic States. Those are the homes of gray squirrels that could not find a tree cavity to live in. Those furry squirrels curl up overnight in their balls of leaves to be warm and at least somewhat safe from the weather and predators.
Gray squirrels are just one species of many kinds of rodents that MAKE homes for themselves in this area, as elsewhere on Earth, to live in through the year and raise young in. Rodents are the contractors of the mammal world.
Eastern chipmunks create nests in the soil of woodlands and older suburbs, where females of the species raise young. Chipmunks spend nights and winter weeks in those underground homes where they also stored seeds and grain during autumn. In winter, they sleep a lot in their nests, but wake occasionally to nibble stored food, then go back to bed for a few days. In this way they have a good chance of surviving winter. Only weasels and shrews, both of which are small, slim and active in winter, can kill and eat chipmunks in their burrows. Weasels and shrews could also live in chipmunk houses, after they killed and ate the occupants.
Greens-eating eastern wood chucks are large ground squirrels that dig big, extensive burrows in fields, meadows, and roadside banks where they are most noticeable. There each chuck lives the year around, and females give birth. Each burrow has a few exits so those critters are not trapped in their own home by black bears, coyotes or red foxes that would dig after them. Abandoned chuck holes, and those vacated by the death of the contractor, provide homes to other mammals, including cottontail rabbits, opossums, striped skunks and red foxes.
Meadow voles make chewed-grass nests in the soil, or on top of it, at the base of tall grass in fields, meadows and roadsides. They also create homes on the soil under blankets of snow and pushed-down grass and tunnel through the surrounding grass and snow to feeding areas where they eat mostly grass and weed seeds. When the snow melts away, one can see vole nests and runways through the flattened grass that had been under the snow.
In spring, many female bumble bees start nurseries of young bees in abandoned meadow vole homes. Those fertilized bees lay eggs in mouse nests in tall grasses or under logs, rocks and other protective objects.
Many white-footed mice live in tree hollows, in cavities in the ground or under rock, log or brush piles. And some of them live in deserted birds' nests. They convert those nurseries for themselves by putting a protective roof of twigs, needles and leaves on top and chewing a hole in the side of the nest. There each mouse lives in reasonable safety from weather and predators.
Muskrats and beavers are aquatic rodents that live by waterways and in ponds. Both species dig homes into stream banks, starting at the normal water level and working up as they dig deeper. Beavers make burrows much bigger than those of muskrats, of course. Only mink can get into a muskrat home, kill the occupant or occupants and use the home for itself.
But in impoundments, beavers and muskrats pile vegetation on mud shelves they created under water to support their homes. Beavers pile up branches and twigs, while muskrats use cattails, reeds and corn stalks to build their houses. Each kind of rodent digs an under water entrance in the side of the home.
Muskrats and beavers eat the same kinds of vegetation they use to make their homes. Beavers chew and consume the bark off limbs before they use them in construction. Muskrats ingest cattail roots, grass and other types of plants.
Rodents of several kinds build homes for themselves, some of which can be used by other creatures. And some of those homes are visible to us as signs that those critters exist, even if we don't see the animals themselves. Get out and see if you can find rodent homes where you live.
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