Spotsylvania Court House Battlefield, Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania Nat’l Military Park

The battlefield at Spotsylvania Courthouse has returned to fields and woodland with the numerous trenches now small ridges that snake through the fields. The woods here are filled with the sounds of red-bellied and downy woodpeckers and the only blues and grays left in the forest are those of blue jays and Carolina chickadees. As you wander the edge of the forest, watch for a flash of red in the undergrowth signaling the arrival of a northern cardinal or an American robin. Out in the open, check the taller grasses for skulking sparrows including song, savannah and vesper. Be sure to keep checking overhead for a red-tailed hawk soaring high above the treetops amongst the turkey and black vultures or perhaps a northern harrier quartering the meadow in search of invisible rodents hidden deep in the grass.