The vole was the first. In December after the early snows fell, he appeared in the snowbank in his inch-wide hole outside our kitchen window. He poked his dark pointed snout out quickly before vanishing back into his snow trail. We see voles every winter as they come for the seeds dropped from the bird feeder above. He was an expected winter visitor.

Then the winter became more adamant. Snow piled on snow and the tiny vole hole all but disappeared below three more feet of snow.

One morning the new snow was soft and fluffy. As we waited for the men to come and plow our driveway and shovel our walks, a brisk red squirrel appeared outside our window. He moved in jerky little steps and flicked his tail. He found the small entrance made by the vole and nosed his way in. He reappeared quickly, making a small circular tunnel and darted in and out, checking the seed situation at each turn. As days passed, he made long extension tunnels running down into the snow banks below. He would exit no less than 15 feet away at the rear door. He popped out, showing only his head and the top of his body, alert and on the lookout for predators, then vanished down again. We filled the bird feeder each day and the birds and other creatures dined on the seeds and scatterings. The larger gray squirrels looked into the now-larger hole, but were not interested.

By mid-February the hole had become frozen hard from the cold spells. The entrance had grown larger. One evening as we ate dinner, the flicker of something moving quickly at the hole caught our eye. A small brown mouse darted in and out of the hole. He streaked out to snatch some fallen seeds and then seemed to jump the six to eight inches back into the hole. I called him our “jumping mouse,” but upon doing some research could find no such critter as a jumping mouse in New England.

By early March, the snow was melting and compacting. The four feet of snow had become a foot and the six-inch entrance was twisted and darkened by the husks of scattered seeds packed into the snow. The gray squirrels and awakening chipmunks crept by under the feeder, ignoring the abandoned tunnel entrance. The vole has disappeared. Soon this snowy refuge will melt away and be no more. Except in our winter watching memory.