Grassland Birds Thrive in Battlefield Parks

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Grassland Birds Thrive in Battlefield Parks
Written by Mark Bramhill

This is BirdNote.

          [Ken Burns Civil War fiddle song, Ashokan Farewell]

Gettysburg, Antietam, Monocacy; they each hold significance in American history as the sites of decisive battles in the Civil War. But these iconic battlefields have significance for birds, too — as detailed in this letter home from a Grasshopper Sparrow:

Mark Bramhill [in disguise]: Dear Ma: The grasslands of my forebears are lost to time. Habitat loss has chipped away at our territories until it seems like there is nothing left. Our only refuge is in the historic National Battlefield Parks.

          [Record scratch, fiddle music cuts out]

OK, so birds aren’t sending messages to their families from the front lines — but National Battlefield Parks are grassland habitats worth writing home about. Tall grassy fields aren’t typically considered beautiful, much less valuable to conserve. Battlefield Parks are maintained as historic sites, with the side-effect of preserving excellent habitat. Most of the parks are sites of Civil War battles in the eastern US, but there are four from the Revolutionary War and a handful of others as far off as Michigan and Montana.

Today, rather than the roar of cannons, fields like Antietam are filled with the songs of Blue Grosbeaks…

          [Blue Grosbeak song]

Eastern Meadowlarks…

          [Eastern Meadowlark song]

Field Sparrows…

          [Field Sparrow song]

Indigo Buntings…

          [Indigo Bunting song]

And of course, Grasshopper Sparrows

          [Grasshopper Sparrow]

For our grassland birds, these, too, are hallowed grounds.

For BirdNote, I’m Michael Stein.

###

Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Ariana Remmel
Content Director: Jonese Franklin

Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Blue Grosbeak [ML94465], Field Sparrow [ML62505421], Indigo Bunting [ML94462], Grasshopper Sparrow [ML94459] and Eastern Meadowlark [ML249848] recorded by W. Hershberger. Ashokan Farewell from the Ken Burns film The Civil War.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2025 BirdNote August 2025
Narrator: Michael Stein

ID# BattlefieldParks-01-2025-08-DD    BattlefieldParks-01

Reference:
https://www.nps.gov/articles/battlefield-birds.htm 
https://web.archive.org/web/20201029190416/https://wingsbirds.com/tours…;
https://www.npca.org/articles/236-birds-and-birders-find-a-welcome-refu…;
https://www.perryvillebattlefield.org/html/birding.html