If I asked you to name five mammals found locally, I would expect a list including: white-tailed deer, bear, rabbits, foxes or coyotes. There are many, many more mammals, and often overlooked, less-conspicuous ones that we forget. How about mice, shrews, voles or chipmunks?

I am considered a “stump sitter.” I skip Saturday afternoon football games to have the opportunity to spend a few quiet hours sitting somewhere in “Penn’s Woods,” especially in fall. Sitting quietly gives you a front-row seat to view these small and surprisingly rather common mammals.

There are a number of vole species in Pennsylvania, and they include the common meadow vole (meadow mouse) and the red-backed vole. Meadow voles are probably the most common mammal in our state, living in fields, meadows and sometimes your lawns. They aren’t seen often since they remain hidden in their grassy runways.

While sitting in the woods, I get to see their nearly as common cousins, the red-backed voles. They are active day and night but stay mostly hidden underneath the forest’s leafy floor. When sitting for hours in the fall hunting seasons, I often drop (intentionally) small morsels of my trail mix near my feet. Sometimes by the next morning these small, furry rodents have located them and can’t wait to grab a piece of walnut or almond.

These voles in quiet, dry conditions can be heard rustling under the leaves, and I can anticipate where they will pop up as they search for their food. All voles are vital to the food chain as they fall prey to fox, owls, weasels, snakes, bears, coyotes, etc. Luckily, “redbacks” breed from February through October with multiple litters of four or five young.

More common then most people realize, but seldom seen, are the shrews. They are more slender with a beautiful dense short gray fur. They too spend most of their lives under the leaf litter but you can, if within a few feet of them, hear faint squeaking as they forage. They have a meteoric heart rate of more than 1,000 beats per minute, and they eat their own weight in food a day. If they are not sleeping, they are probably feeding.

The short-tailed shrew is the most common. It is the only venomous mammal (not a threat to us) and will bite a salamander or earthworm, stunning them, and then enjoy its meal. They also eat insects, spiders, even mice or nuts/seeds. They too enjoy my trail mix morsels, but unlike the vole, which might even sit for a moment on my insulated boot, they dart out from the leaves, grab some food, and in a flash, are back in hiding.

Chipmunks are the most visible and familiar of the small mammals. They adapt to life in towns and forested areas. The eastern chipmunk is actually a type of ground squirrel; however they climb well and don’t hesitate to get berries or nuts still on shrubs or trees. (They are not as arboreal as squirrels though.)

To a homeowner’s dismay, they feast on tulip bulbs, too. They spend most of their time (they are diurnal) scurrying from stump to stump or rock pile as they gather food to eat and closer to fall, to cache away for the winter. “Chippies” have one litter of four or five young each year and are fed upon by the same predators as the voles and shrews.

Chipmunks, unlike the voles and shrews, will den for the winter, waking occasionally to feed on the food they have stashed there. Occasionally they can be seen at your bird feeder in the middle of winter. Find a woodlot or your favorite forest haunt and sit for a while on a dry, fall day to look and listen for the small mammals at your feet.

Test Your Outdoor Knowledge: Which of these is a deciduous tree? A. hemlock, B. larch, C. white pine, D. black spruce.

Last Week’s Trivia Answer: The barn owl, short-eared owl, and long-eared owl populations in Pennsylvania are shrinking rapidly.

Contact Barry Reed at breed71@gmail.com.