KSMB Celebrates 30 Years of ‘Don’t Mess With Texas’

This spring, Keep San Marcos Beautiful (KSMB) is celebrating the 30th anniversary of Don't mess with Texas with Texas Department of Transportation (TXDoT) and Keep Texas Beautiful by hosting the Don't mess with Texas Trash & Treasure Hunt. Volunteers are invited to participate in the city-wide event to help clean up streets throughout town.

The event will take place on Saturday, May 7, from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Volunteers will meet at San Marcos Plaza Park, 401 E Hopkins, at 9 a.m. for registration and games. The cleanup and treasure hunt will take place from 10 a.m. – noon. Following the cleanup, be sure to return to Plaza Park where Texas Department of Transportation will host the drawing for prizes.

TXDoT is celebrating 30 years of Don’t mess with Texas by choosing one Keep Texas Beautiful affiliate in each of their 25 districts to host the Trash & Treasure event. The event will combine community service with fun—part trash pickup, part treasure hunt, the Don’t Mess with Texas Trash & Treasure Hunt is sure to be exciting!

Volunteers from San Marcos will help pick up trash in four areas throughout town to keep our community litter-free while hunting for “treasure”—prizes be donated from event partners such as YETI, AM Racing, The Bullock Texas State History Museum, McDonald’s, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Schlitterbahn, the San Antonio Missions, and others! 

The event will focus on 4 areas:

• HWY 123: De Zavala Drive to I-35
• FM 621: Crystal River Parkway to HWY 123
• HWY 80: Blanco River bridge to I-35
• HWY 80: I-35 to CM Allen

 The schedule is as follows:

• 9 AM: Volunteer registration and games at Plaza Park (401 E Hopkins)
• 10 AM - Noon: Clean up event
• Noon: Volunteers will meet back at Plaza Park, Texas Department of Transportation to host a drawing for prizes

 Volunteers should wear closed-toe shoes. Participation shirts will be provided. Please sign up individually (not in groups) and indicate shirt size. Thank you for volunteering!

  There will be special “litter” marked with Don’t Mess with Texas bumper stickers staged in the cleanup areas; the lucky volunteers who find these bumper stickers will receive a prize from one of the event partners mentioned above.

As another great incentive to get involved, Don’t Mess with Texas will reward Boy Scouts who participate in the event with a special Don’t Mess with Texas 30^th anniversary patch. To claim your patch, email a short description of the litter event you attended and a photo to boyscouts@dontmesswithtexas.org . Your 30^th anniversary patch will be mailed to you!

Volunteers who are interested in participating should visit the sign up page at http://goo.gl/z7nLrJ. You can also find more information about the event on this page. Be sure to specify your shirt size and take note of the litter cleanup areas.

Temporary Purgatory Map

  There's still a lot of work to be done in Lower Purgatory Creek Natural Area following the October 30, 2015 flood. A new, temporary map reflects the changes in the Dante Trail below the spillway. Rather than paralleling the Wonder World overpass the trail turns left and heads to the backside of the dam. Unfortunately, this crosses private property. A re-route of the trail is being designed but will take months to complete.
   Dante connects with Ripheus at the top of the dam and spillway until it reconnects at the Junction. Dante is still the major trail through the natural area but is no longer 4.1 miles but 3.6 miles.
   [Thanks to Katie S. at CoSM GIS for the map.]

Dante's Trail in Lower Purgatory at 2102 Hunter Road has changed due to the flood.

Birding hike at SMRF Ranch

  When it comes to variety of species in bird walks one location sure to please is the property owned by the San Marcos River Foundation off Lime Kiln Road. Although the temperature was in the low-to-mid 40's and the ground was wet, the viewing was grand. We saw 38 different species compared to last year's 35. Other locations range in the 20-30 species depending on the availability of a water feature.
   Migration is in full force and we were able to view the very colorful Scissor-tailed Flycatcher and Eastern Bluebird sitting facing the warming sun.

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (C. Robbins)

   We were a large group of birders numbering 22 walking on a mostly level surface. Starting at dawn we were up when the birds start moving around. Stephen Ramirez leads the hikes each month to a different location around San Marcos. Colton Robbins assists and is a very good birder-by-ear.
  Past month's list are available on eBird or in previous posts to the blog. To join the group eMail Stephen@birdsiview.org      -- LJ

A chilly start to the morning

38 species

Northern Bobwhite  2
Double-crested Cormorant  3
Great Blue Heron  1
Black Vulture  14
Turkey Vulture  4
Killdeer  1
Mourning Dove  4
Black-chinned Hummingbird  3
Ladder-backed Woodpecker  1
Eastern Phoebe  1
Ash-throated Flycatcher  2
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher  1
American Crow  3
Barn Swallow  3
Cliff Swallow  10
Carolina Chickadee  1
Black-crested Titmouse  5
Verdin  3
Canyon Wren  2
House Wren  1
Carolina Wren  1
Bewick's Wren  3
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  5
Ruby-crowned Kinglet  3
Eastern Bluebird  2
Northern Mockingbird  4
Yellow-rumped Warbler  1
Black-throated Green Warbler  1
Lark Sparrow  2
White-crowned Sparrow  5
Vesper Sparrow  1
Savannah Sparrow  1
Lincoln's Sparrow  3
Northern Cardinal  3
Eastern Meadowlark  15
Brown-headed Cowbird  9
House Finch  4
Lesser Goldfinch  6