Wildlife

Not only do I enjoy walking the battlefield and getting a sense of the history of the place, but I also enjoy watching the wildlife that seems to peek out from every corner of the park. I started out paying attention to the birds. I was never a "birder" but one day I happened to see a "red, white, and black" bird. In my mind I thought it was quite possibly one of the most majestic birds I had seen on the Gettysburg battlefield....it was almost patriotic (well, it would have been had the black been blue). I spent a few weeks trying to track down what that bird was, and then my sister gave me a bird book and I discovered that what I had seen was a red-headed woodpecker. Throughout my travels on the battlefield, I have seen a total of 5 different kinds of woodpecker.....including the humongous Pileated....a number of times (actually almost daily). The variety of birds in the park is almost more than my poor head can keep up with. Once when I was giving a tour down at the Ball's Bluff battlefield, we were standing on the bluff overlooking the Potomac River when we saw a Bald Eagle soaring high above the river, searching for what I assumed was his lunch.

Also down at Balls Bluff, I have seen black snakes (ick), turtles, squirrels and many other critters roaming the field. My favorite episode as a guide down there was a tour I gave to 7 Cub Scouts. Now these boys were 6 and 7 years old. They found a black snake sunning itself on the path and they ran up to it and just stood and watched it for quite a while....until the snake said "enough!" and went on his way. About 10 minutes later, one of the boys, who had been using a walking stick, starting screaming at the top of his lungs and threw his stick away from him. We ran over to see what was going on and it turned out he had an ant on his stick. This was the same boy who was practically laying on the ground to see the snake. I will never forget that day.

But on the Gettysburg battlefield I have seen just about everything: deer, ground hogs, squirrels, chipmunks, skunks, cats, dogs, foxes, box turtles, snapping turtles and even a bear. Probably one of the most famous creatures living on the field is an albino fox. I've seen him twice. Most people see him once. He shows himself every once in a while....and when you see him, you are almost certain that its a ghost fox....but its not....he's just albino. When you see him, you almost join this little "club" of people who have seen him.

The bear wasn't actually on the battlefield...it was in town....but the town is part of the battlefield. He ran across the street right behind my car and scared me to death. He went down an alley past the 7-11 and headed straight for the Majestic Theatre. Never has a wild animal scared me more. What was a bear doing in downtown Gettysburg? It was a cold morning and I figure that he was heading to the 7-11 for a coffee to warm up. In the newspaper, it was reported that he was seen fleeing away from Gettysburg past the Peace Light.

My point to all this is that despite what happened on the battlefields, it is also a haven to those creatures who are being pushed out of their natural habitats by development. We need to save our battlefields so that future generations will get to see and study what those that lived before us did...but we also need to save this open space for the creatures that lived here long before we did.