Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 64
A
Dance of the Vole
WINTER stingy of snow had marooned my cross-country skis inside. Finally,
they pressed scant powder on a stony route in Ohiopyle State Park, Fayette
County. Despite the thin snow, the day threatened no thaw. My porch thermometer
had read -11 at daybreak, and 7 when I left the house.
I'd gone a long way without cutting sign, so an odd trail stood out. Some
small animal, wide as my thumb, had careened down the slope, then
looped back over its own path in a series of 8-inch ovals. The signs
conveyed panic, headlong and uncontrolled.
The loops tightened to the breadth of a baseball, leading to a
trampled "pad" about the size of this Game News. Many linear probes,
like spokes from a hub, led out from the pad in all directions. At the
end of one probe lay a rich-brown sphere, no bigger than a pingpong ball, robed in glossy fur.
I cradled the sphere, helpless and panting, in my gloved palm. The creature's
tucked head was thimble-size, short and bluntly tapered, somehow bear-like. An arc
of orange incisor showed bare at the snout. Rounded ears humped scarcely above the
fur, suggesting where to find the tiny, flat-black eyes. A rusty-red backbone-stripe
betrayed its identity - a red-backed vole.
Red-backed voles inhabit northern forests around the globe. In North America
they thrive from Alaska to Labrador and southward along a thousand-mile-long spur
atop the Appalachian spine. Red-backs forage through rock voids and under snow for
seeds, bulbs and subterranean fungus.
Biologists note that in much of their range, including Pennsylvania's upland
hardwoods, red-backed voles are often the most abundant mammal in the ecosystem.
Yet, they are so secretive that this vole was but the second one of its kind I had seen.
I placed the vole at the end of its tracks where I'd found it. When I returned later it
was dead. What had evoked its panicked flight? No weasel track pursued it. No owl's
primaries had carved the snow.
Later, I read that veterinarians term the behavior I saw recorded in snow "waltzing,"
a response to stress seen in some species of rodents, voles among them. I also read
that red-backs in their northern range depend on deep snowpack to insulate them
from cold, and I wondered about that day, frigid with meager powder. But if cold had
flushed out the vole to expire at the surface, and if red-backs are so abundant, why had
I seen no other panicked trails of waltzing voles?
Evidently, whatever tormented this vole was some internal affliction. Today, we are more
attuned to wildlife disease-established or alien-than at any time in our innocent past. One
vole's last trail testified it's a part of life, and death, in the woods.
64
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018
Contents
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - Cover1
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - Cover2
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - Contents
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 2
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 3
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 4
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 5
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 6
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 7
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 8
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 9
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 10
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 11
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 12
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 13
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 14
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 15
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 16
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 17
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 18
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 19
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 20
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 21
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 22
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 23
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 24
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 25
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 26
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 27
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 28
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 29
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 30
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 31
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 32
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 33
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 34
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 35
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 36
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 37
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 38
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 39
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 40
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 41
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Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 43
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Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 45
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Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 49
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 50
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Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 53
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 54
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 55
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 56
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 57
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 58
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Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 60
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 61
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Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 63
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - 64
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - Cover3
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2018 - Cover4
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