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Townsend's Vole is as long as my fist, about half the size of a Norway Rat and 2/3 the size of a Rattus rattus. Their tails are about half as long as a rat's. There's... I think six? species of voles in Western Washington, of which Townsend's is the largest. I did a big old obsessive study of rodents the first time I saw a black rat on my bird-feeder: it was a rat, all right, but I was hoping it would be anything else at all. I hate rats, and we didn't actually have a problem with them until the apartments went in across the road and contracted for one-day-a-week trash (dumpster) disposal: the snow storm of December 2006 coincided with Tacoma Rail dead-heading some "empty" grain cars on the siding near here and two missed trash pic-ups between Christmas Eve and January 2, and we were off to the races, rat wise.
I also have the infamous Mazama Pocket Gopher, but besides being uglier than sin and eating the occassional rose root system, they're much less annoying and destructive than the voles: Zathras finds the voles supremely tastey, and hunts them when there are no gourmet baby bunnies.
We used to have a lot of voles, but my cat is exceptionally good at catching them. Now I hardly ever see them.
Voles are basically appetites with fur, and don't seem to have any sense of self preservation beyond building really secure nurseries. Their biggest drawback, as far as I've experienced, is that they will sit and eat any concentrated food source until it's absolutely gone and then waddle off to have a couple of dozen young'uns. They don't kill live animals, which both species of rats will (the bigger shrews will take baby songbirds, but won't hurt chickens) and don't carry plague like rats and deer mice (deer mice also carry Hanta Virus, but like squirrels they get away with a bunch of badness because they're so cute).
I am still being relatively inactive, although there's a load of white shirts that I'll need to hang out in a few minutes. I've GOT to figure out a quick Hamburg pen: if I get a Nephew today or tomorrow and can contrive a door (not hard, and nothing to buy) I'll probably use a couple of flat wire trellises and make a long, narrow run. I've got plenty of wire, hinges, corner brackets, and small-dimension lumber, so there should be a way out: what I don't have is any energy at all.
