Offering a variety of habitat ranging from mature forest to open pasture, the Gettysburg National Military Park is home to many species of animals including amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. This post focuses on the park’s eastern cottontails.

The eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) is a New World cottontail rabbit. The eastern cottontail is chunky and red-brown or gray-brown in appearance with large hind feet, long ears and a short fluffy white tail. They serve as an important food source for many of the park’s predators, including the raptors and foxes. Cottontails may comprise nearly 50 percent of the fox diet for example.

Best Places to See Them: These rabbits can easily be seen all over the battlefield, especially in the spring and summer. This particular cottontail was photographed at the Peach Orchard. Optimal eastern cottontail habitat includes open grassy areas, clearings, and old fields supporting abundant green grasses and herbs, with shrubs in the area or edges for cover, which obviously well describes much of the Gettysburg National Military Park!

Offering a variety of habitat ranging from mature forest to open pasture, the Gettysburg National Military Park is home to many species of animals including amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. This post focuses on the park’s turkey vultures.

The turkey vulture is a large soaring bird. Turkey Vultures use their acute sense of smell and sharp eyesight to locate carrion. Vultures do not kill; they are solely scavengers. The Turkey Vulture is a gentle and non-aggressive bird.

Best Places to See Them: Turkey vultures are very common at Gettysburg and can be seen throughout the park in the sky, riding the wind. These birds soar on thermals of warm, rising air. Soaring flight is much more energetically efficient than powered, flapping flight. They prefer mixed farmland and forest as habitat which explains their success in the Park. Good places to see them in trees include the summit of Big Round Top. They can also occasionally be spotted on the ground on cool mornings warming up in the sun with their wings outstretched. This is called “The Horaltic Pose.” This turkey vulture was photographed on Culp’s Hill near the Spangler Meadow.

You can distinguish the more common turkey vulture from the park’s population of black vultures because the Black Vulture has a white patch only at end of wings, has shorter wings, a short tail, a black head (although note that juvenile turkey vultures have gray heads; the red head appears at approximately one-year), does not soar with wings held up in the characteristic V, and it flaps much more frequently when flying.

Offering a variety of habitat ranging from mature forest to open pasture, the Gettysburg National Military Park is home to many species of animals including amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. This post focuses on the park’s Eastern Towhees.

Towhees are a kind of large sparrow. The male is a striking bird with bright rufous sides and white on the belly contrasting with a black back. Eastern Towhees are birds of the undergrowth, where their rummaging makes far more noise than you would expect for their size.

Best Places to See Them: These are very common but tough to actually spot! Towhees like to look for food on the ground in forested areas. I have seen them frequently in the woods near the Wheatfield (this one was photographed next to the 118th Pennsylvania Monument off of the Loop) and in the woods near the Virginia State Monument along West Confederate Avenue. If you hear something rummaging around in the woods, you should keep your eyes open for a glimpse of a Towhee!

Offering a variety of habitat ranging from mature forest to open pasture, the Gettysburg National Military Park is home to many species of animals including amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. This post focuses on the park’s Brown Thrashers.

The Brown Thrasher is a bird in the thrush family. They are related to mockingbirds. The Brown Thrasher is known for having one of the largest song repertoires of any North American bird — they are thought to know up to 300 songs. Brown Thrashers are omnivores. These birds can be extremely aggressive when defending their nests.

The Brown Thrasher is the Georgia state bird. The Georgia state website describes them thusly: “Almost a foot in length, the Thrasher has a long, curved bill and a very long tail. It has two prominent white wing bars, a rich brown color on its top side, and a creamy white breast heavily streaked with brown.”

Best Places to See Them: Brown Thrashers tend to like thickets and dense brush, but they like open areas as well. This Brown Thrasher was photographed north of the Wheatfield on the Wheatfield Road. I would look for Brown Thrashers in the Wheatfield and in Excelsior Field. Brown Thrashers migrate to the Gettysburg area in the summer, so your best bet to see them is in the spring to fall. They live year round in the South.

Offering a variety of habitat ranging from mature forest to open pasture, the Gettysburg National Military Park is home to many species of animals including amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. This post focuses on the park’s Red-winged Blackbirds.

Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) are abundant birds. The showy, glossy-black males have scarlet-and-yellow shoulder patches; the female is a subdued, streaky brown that could be mistook for a large sparrow. Male Red-winged Blackbirds do everything they can to get noticed, sitting on high perches and belting out their conk-la-ree! song all day long. In fact, the conk-la-ree sound is often the first harbinger of spring.

Best Places to See Them: Red-winged black birds can be found all over the park in the summer. Look for them on fences and on top of monuments. Excelsior Field, the areas around the McPherson farm, and the Peach Orchard are some good places to see these guys. Look for red-winged blackbirds on fences or on top of monuments. This bird was photographed sitting on top of the monument to the 12th Illinois Cavalry near the Railroad Cut on the First Day battlefield. They like marshy land and can sometimes be spotted in the cattails near the pond on the McPherson barn.

Monument Details, Alternative Views, and Contextual Views

Offering a variety of habitat ranging from mature forest to open pasture, the Gettysburg National Military Park is home to many species of animals including amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. This post focuses on the park’s red headed woodpeckers.

The Red-headed Woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) is a striking bird. An aggressive bird, they do not like to be spotted and if they catch you looking at them, they will take off quickly. Look for the bright red head and the black and white back.

Best Places to See Them: Gettysburg boasts a large population of these often very elusive birds. The best place to see them in my experience is 1) The woods between the Tennessee Monument and the Virginia Monument; 2) the Loop near the Rose Farm and the Wheatfield; 3) the witness tree in Devil’s Den. The bird pictured here was photographed in the Devil’s Den witness tree.

Offering a variety of habitat ranging from mature forest to open pasture, the Gettysburg National Military Park is home to many species of animals including amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. This post focuses on the park’s White Tail Deer.

The white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) is also known as the Virginia deer. They are very common throughout the military park.

Best Places to See Them: Look for deer both in open fields and in the woods. I have seen them most frequently in the field of Pickett’s Charge in the winter and during the summer along Confederate Avenue. This doe was photographed near McMillian Woods on Seminary Ridge, West Confederate Avenue.

Offering a variety of habitat ranging from mature forest to open pasture, the Gettysburg National Military Park is home to many species of animals including amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. This post focuses on the park’s American Kestrels.

The American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) is a very colorful small falcon that is quite common. They sometimes engage in “hover-hunting” — the bird hovers, then drops on prey. Kestrels eat mainly small rodents on the battlefield.

Best Places to See Them: Kestrels can be found all over the battlefield, but are most common along fence lines and in open fields. This American Kestrel male was photographed sitting on top of the 153rd Pennsylvania Monument on Barlow’s Knoll.

Offering a variety of habitat ranging from mature forest to open pasture, the Gettysburg National Military Park is home to many species of animals including amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. This post focuses on the park’s Northern Mockingbirds.

The Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) is a slender-bodied gray bird with a ton of personality. They sing almost endlessly and they don’t tend to be shy — you’re likely to not have to work to see these guys!

Best Places to See Them: Mockingbirds are abundant on the battlefield. This bird was photographed on Little Round Top, but you can see mockingbirds virtually anywhere on the battlefield. They are more common in the open fields and like to perch on top of the park’s many monuments. In fact, that’s often an excellent place to look for them!

Offering a variety of habitat ranging from mature forest to open pasture, the Gettysburg National Military Park is home to many species of animals including amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. This post focuses on the park’s Cooper’s Hawks.

Agile and skillful fliers, Cooper’s Hawks mainly hunt birds. A medium sized hawk, Cooper’s Hawks are significantly smaller than the park’s much larger red-tail hawks. A very adaptable bird, Cooper’s hawks can be found everywhere from subdivisions to deep forests. Smaller and stealthier, they are harder to find, but keep your eyes open and you may be rewarded by getting to see this amazing hunter. In flight, Cooper’s use a flap-flap-glide flight style. You can also pick them out by their long tails in flight.

Best Places to See Them: I have seen Cooper’s Hawks most frequently at Gettysburg on South Confederate Avenue and in the D-Shaped (Slyder) Field. This bird was photographed near Kilpatrick’s Cavalry Division monument on South Confederate Avenue near Bushman Hill. I have also occasionally seen them hanging around town where they probably pick off birds from bird feeders (Cooper’s are notorious for this).