“So, you like walk the trails all day?”
~ some random person when we told them what we were doing at Balcones
Yep. That’s almost exactly what we do.
You can read all about the refuge at the Fish and Wildlife Website. This refuge, just 30 minutes from Austin, TX, was specifically established to protect the nesting grounds of the black-capped vireo and the endangered golden-cheeked warbler. During the spring nesting season, birders come from all over to try to catch a glimpse of the tiny songbirds. They traipse through the nearly ten miles of trails spread between two separate units of the refuge: Doeskin Ranch and Warbler Vista. Trail Docents (that’s us) help folks figure out what trails they might want to take, answer questions, and are generally just around as a presence.
And no, we knew absolutely nothing about the birds before we got here. Nor had we ever set foot on the trails. That’s part of the fun of volunteering at places like this, you get to become quasi-expert at stuff you never knew you wanted to know. Learning about the birds was the easy part. Vic was able to explore more of the trails quicker than I was since those dumb medical walking shoes are not exactly trail-friendly and apparently multiple broken meta-whatevers take a long time to completely heal.
Luckily just before our arrival, the park was gifted with a sweet Mobile Ranger Station for us volunteers to haul to the trail heads and set up as a remote visitor center. We can loan out Junior Ranger backpacks and have all the maps and field guides there to help answer questions. But most folks confuse us for a food truck and try to order breakfast tacos or ice cream.
The Nuts and Bolts of It All
Most places that we volunteer offer us a site to set up our RV and connect to utilities in trade for a pre-determined number of hours each week. Here at Balcones, we are parked up on a ridge on refuge property that is closed to the public. We both work the same three days a week and mostly work together throughout our shifts. The different units we frequent are about 17 miles apart, so the refuge has trucks we use for our work days. There are three other RV’s up here for other volunteers, some of them we overlap days with but mostly just see them in passing.
“Wait, you work together in a small trailer AND live together in a small trailer!? Don’t you get tired of each other?”
~ anonymous
A typical day starts around 8am when we check in and get our tasks for the day/weekend. We are usually set up at whichever trail by around 9am. If we have the Mobile Ranger Station, we open up and wait for folks to ask us questions. Otherwise, we pick a trail to walk, stopping to note any problems that need addressing or talk to other hikers. At Warbler Vista, there’s a really nice covered deck at the end of one trail that we can perch for a while out of the sun and wind. (See the photo in the collage at the top.) At Doeskin, the trails all start from a central hub, so we can set up our chairs there in the shade and watch the scissortail flycatchers chase each other around. We are packing up and heading back to headquarters by around 3:30 to check in, return vehicles, and take care of anything needing doing. Home with our feet propped up by 4:30, being entertained by the birds.
We’ve had volunteer gigs that were as short as one month, but 2-3 months is ideal for us. We will leave here at the end of May and spend the summer goofing off before we get to our next assignment in Oregon in September. That gives me about four more weeks to get my rear up to the top of Indian Grass Trail at Doeskin Ranch. It’ll take me all day, but I’m determined to do it now that I’m back in regular hiking shoes!
As for the living and working together – we’ve not grown tired of it yet and I can’t imagine that happening!
Where To Now 