Something leaving 1 - 2" bare trails in grass - what is it?

Around the base of the tree in my front yard, there are a circular bed of flowers. In the past week, about 1 - 2 inch wide paths with no grass have started appearing coming out from the bed of flowers into the grass. So far, the trails have appeared in two spots. One trail continues for several feet back into the grass, although grass from the sides covers it so you can't see it that well, but if you feel with your hand, it is there.

It's like the grass just stopped growing to form these trails. I have no idea what is doing it. Bugs? Mouse? Squirrel? Mole? Snake?

Here are some pictures of the trails:

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-PP

Reply to
Pelvis Popcan
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Looks like vole trails to me.

Sue snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net

Reply to
SugarChile

Did some googling for vole trails, it looks like that's definitely what it is.

I found a product called "whole control" on bugspray.com, I might try it. Not a poison, just a repellent.

Thanks for the help, without it I would have no idea what I was dealing with!

"SugarChile" wrote:

Reply to
Pelvis Popcan

I don't have much of a problem with voles in the summertime. I know they're out there, going about their vole business and living their voles lives, but they don't seem to cause any particular damage, perhaps because of the easy availability of food. The population seems to undergo some cyclical flux--some years they are on a downswing and not visible.

Our winters are very variable here, so some years we don't have much snow, or what we do have melts in a series of thaws. In those conditions I have no issues with voles.

But in a winter like the past one, where it snowed early and often, and the ground was covered until spring, the voles have a field day. Without the threat of predation from cats and hawks, they are free to make extensive tunnels. They cleaned out hundreds of crocus and chinodoxa bulbs last winter, and damaged (although not fatally) some perennials.

I'll replant the bulbs, and hope for the best. I encourage the neighborhood cats to hang around; they are fairly easy prey for a cat that's a good hunter. And I'll see what interesting surprises Nature has in store for me this winter.

Let us know how the repellant works out.

Cheers, Sue

Reply to
SugarChile

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