New Hampshire’s 1,087 records of the southern red-backed vole all come from GBIF, with none yet logged through iNaturalist.
A vole tied to old, mossy ground
This vole needs cool, moist forest floor with plenty of downed logs, moss, and deep leaf litter to tunnel through, conditions that build up most reliably in older, less-disturbed stands. The high-elevation spruce-fir and hemlock forest of the White Mountains carries a lot of that kind of ground cover, and the vole plays a real role there in spreading the below-ground fungi that help the roots of spruce, fir, and hemlock take up nutrients.
A record spike that outruns the calendar
Records barely register from January through May, then jump sharply from June through September before falling again. Like other small forest mammals that stay active under the snow all winter, that gap likely traces back to when trapping surveys run rather than to the vole disappearing for half the year.
Status in New Hampshire
The southern red-backed vole is native to New Hampshire, and NatureServe ranks it S5, secure. It stays closely tied to the state’s older, complex forest, particularly the high country of the White Mountains, where downed wood and deep litter are still common.
Full species profile
