The Mighty Vole Hunter

The snow is deep, but the voles should not feel relaxed.The Mighty Vole Hunter rests not in the winter. I don't know if he hears them mousing around or smells them, but without warning, he will suddenly leap in the air off the path and come down, plunging his head into the snow and sometimes snuffle-plowing around for a while.Depending on the surface of the snow, he may smack the crust with a paw to crack it, and then thrust his head in and burrow around.If he's lucky, he comes up masticating ostentatiously with disgusting crunching sounds, tails or feet hanging out the side of his mouth.  EWW!If the vole's lucky, he comes up only with a face full of snow.He is really very good at hunting voles.  As good as a cat.  He gets one almost every day, sometimes two.   In the "grassy" wasteland adjoining the Walmart parking lot, of all places, he caught the vole of voles, a trophy the size of a squirrel!  Proving some things are flourishing around Walmart.Sometimes the vole escapes.  Yesterday he flipped the tiniest of voles out of the snow next to the path.  Somehow, it escaped between his back legs, flopping around while he was looking under his front paws- Where'd it go? Barely two inches long, it righted itself and darted to take refuge- under my boot, where I stood behind him.    I saw the tail slip in under my foot and was standing there thinking  Seriously?  Is it hiding?  Under my foot?  Yep.  I lifted my boot and it dashed away a second time, while Snowy snuffled around mystified.  It was right here.  I had it!What we want to know is: Does he keep his eyes open under the snow?