page_title: Bank vole
section_title: Behaviour
hierarchical_section_title: Bank vole / Behaviour
caption_attribution_description: English: Twigs of Sambucus nigra, damaged by Myodes glareolus
context_page_description: The bank vole is a small vole with red-brown fur and some grey patches, with a tail about half as long as its body. A rodent, it lives in woodland areas and is around 100 millimetres in length. The bank vole is found in much of Europe and in northwestern Asia. It is native to Great Britain but not to Ireland, where it has been accidentally introduced, and has now colonised much of the south and southwest.
  The bank vole lives in woodland, hedgerows and other dense vegetation such as bracken and bramble. Its underground chamber is lined with moss, feathers and vegetable fibre and contains a store of food. It can live for eighteen months to two years in the wild and over 42 months in captivity and is mostly herbivorous, eating buds, bark, seeds, nuts, leaves and fruits and occasionally insects and other small invertebrates. It readily climbs into scrub and low branches of trees although it is not as versatile as a mouse. It breeds in shallow burrows, the female rearing about four litters of pups during the summer.
context_section_description: The bank vole is active by day and also at night. It does not hibernate in winter. It excavates long, shallow branching burrows with multiple exits, sometimes tunnelling along beneath the leaf litter. It gathers and stores food underground and makes a nest with moss, dry grasses and leaves close to the surface or even above ground. It is in general quite bold but is also very alert to the cries of other animals such as tits (bird) warning of aerial predators.
  The bank vole is primarily a herbivore. Its diet varies with the season but usually consists of leaves, grasses, roots, buds, bark, fruits, nuts, grain and seeds. When feeding on grass stalks it may clip the stalks and lay the cut pieces in piles. Some food is carried back to the burrow where it is kept in dedicated storage chambers. It sometimes eats animal food in the form of insects, spiders and worms and may take eggs from the nests of birds nesting on the ground.
  The bank vole climbs well and in the winter it feeds on the bark of trees including beeches, maples and larch up to several metres above the ground. It also eats tree seedlings and reduces the natural regeneration of woodland and when present in large numbers, is considered a forest pest. However, its harmfulness is relatively low in a healthy ecosystem because significant damage only occurs when numbers build up, and because it has a large number of natural enemies its population is normally kept under control.
caption: Twigs of elder (Sambucus nigra) damaged by the bank vole
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