Good time for spotting battlefield wildlife

From the front passenger seat, David Weaver stretches an enthusiastic finger toward a historic rock wall on the Gettysburg battlefield.

He looks closely, but seconds later the enthusiasm fades. What he thought was Gettysburg's elusive white fox was just a pale-colored rock.

Maybe next time, Weaver says.

It's not the first time Weaver and the white fox - actually a red fox with a recessive gene that causes the color variant - have shared a moment of mistaken identity. The outcome was different when Weaver made his latest sighting a month ago.

"I thought it was a piece of trash blowing," he said. "Sure enough it was a white fox."

On Friday, Weaver had more luck spotting low-flying northern harriers, hovering kestrels and the all-too-common turkey vultures. The foxes, woodpeckers and pheasants that also call the battlefield home take some more time and patience to spot, he said.

But wildlife is alive and well on the battlefield, and there's no time better than now to find it, Weaver said.

The Gettysburg battlefield - with its open fields, wooded lots and small waterways - is a habitat rich with wildlife, especially birds. With the battlefield practically deserted of tourists and the leaves gone from its many trees, Weaver said the winter is the ideal season to spot it.

"There's cool wildlife-watching spots virtually all over this park," he said.

Weaver considers himself an "amateur birder and naturalist." He's also an artist

who focuses on wildlife themes.

But it's no accident he does most of his painting and wildlife-watching on the battlefield.

A licensed battlefield guide for 23 years, Weaver knows at least as much about battle tactics as he does the migratory routes of the northern harriers.

His interests, however, are in no way mutually exclusive - quite the opposite, actually.

"For me the two just go hand in hand," Weaver said.

Where to look:

On a grass field where hundreds

of Confederate soldiers were annihilated 145 years ago, predatory birds now dominate.

The ground of Pickett's Charge is one of Weaver's favorites to watch for them. The grassy field, ripe with small rodents, makes for a good hunting ground, he said.

"I've probably seen more harriers on this field than anywhere else on the battlefield," Weaver said. "There's so much food."

Winter, especially on cloudy and windy days, is the only time to see the action of northern harriers, also known as marsh hawks, this far south. The low-flying hawk's brown body and white spot on top of its body make it distinct.

The American kestrel can be spotted on the Gettysburg battlefield year round. But the hovering falcons aren't particularly

thrilled with human interaction and are easier to spot when fewer tourists are around, Weaver said.

Isolated old trees are the places to look for kestrels, which perch there to scan the open fields for prey.

To see pileated and red-headed woodpeckers, Weaver recommends the forests of Little Round Top and Big Round Top and the woods near Devil's Den. Woodpeckers are relatively common and can be sighted year round.

Red-tailed hawks are also a common sighting along tree lines, he said. Other hawks - Cooper, sharp-shinned and red-shouldered - are tougher to find. But the Peach Orchard is a good place to look, Weaver said.

The best time to see red foxes - including the white fox - is also during the winter, he said. They roam

open fields but pay close attention to the battlefield's many fences after a snow storm. As snow begins to melt, mice and other rodents use the space between the ground and the fence to travel - something the foxes know, Weaver said.

"It looks like a mouse super highway," he said.

Gray foxes prefer forests and are more elusive. Weaver said it's been years since he's seen one.

Weaver said he also has yet to see a coyote or bear on the battlefield, but both have potential to stop by.

"We don't normally deal with bears," he said. "They need a little more country, but there's food here for them too."

There's also wildlife that's not so tough - or fun - to spot.

Snakes are a regular sighting in Devil's Den. Despite fears, the vast majority are harmless, Weaver said.

Venomous copperheads are rare in Devil's Den. Black rat snakes, on the other hand, are both harmless and common, Weaver said.

"You've got much more to fear from deer ticks and poison ivy on this battlefield, frankly," he said.

Animal myths, legends:

Wildlife may be a lesser known treasure of the Gettysburg battlefield, but animal folklore goes way back.

Legend has it that the rocky terrain of Devil's Den got its name from a gigantic snake that preyed on humans long before the Battle of Gettysburg, Weaver said.

Coyotes made their mark as well in a story from the battle. Weaver said there's an account of Confederate soldiers chasing and killing a coyote right before Pickett's Charge.

Then there's the vulture myth.

Some believe that Gettysburg was overrun with vultures that came to feed on the bodies of dead soldiers after the battle, Weaver said.

But if that's at all true, certainly the vulture population has since dispersed, he said.

The white fox that Weaver looks for is also known in some circles. At least one - some say two - has chosen the battlefield as home and has been spotted numerous times among the monuments and stone walls.

Weaver even has his favorite places to spot the white fox, or foxes. He's not convinced there's more than one around.

"But I've never seen one anywhere else other than Gettysburg," he said.

A more recent addition to Gettysburg animal lore is Buford the red-tailed hawk. Weaver said the park's licensed battlefield guides named the bird after Union Gen. John Buford years ago.

Most hawks stick to trees, but Buford preferred to perch on monuments, Weaver said. It's been a while since Buford has made an appearance, however.

"He was just tolerant of people," Weaver said.

History still first:

Considering his role as the unofficial wildlife expert among the battlefield guides, Weaver said people are often surprised to hear his opinion on some of park officials' controversial decisions.

Weaver is in favor of both the park's deer-management plan and its efforts to restore the battlefield to its 1863 appearance - an initiative that led to the cutting down of many trees.

That's because the vast majority of tourists come to Gettysburg for its history, he said.

"They're not coming here to see a pristine forest or a hawk in a tree," Weaver said. "Our purpose here is historical."

With hunting outlawed in national parks, the white-tailed deer population became out of control in the 1980s. By the mid 1990s, park officials instituted a management program that thinned the population.

But they're still around, and Weaver said that makes sense. Deer were a native species during the battle, after all. Winter is an especially good time to see them, as well.

The tree cutting also made sense, he said, and has actually benefited some species.

While natural resources are not the park's focus, Weaver said there is room for those interests.

When someone calls for an animal-themed tour of the battlefield, the Park Service typically matches them with Weaver.

He's thought about producing an audio tour that people could play in their cars. It's something that hasn't been done before, Weaver said.

"It's hard to do something nowadays connected to Gettysburg that hasn't already been done by a million other people," he said.