On Saturday, May 13th, about a dozen volunteers, along with the San Jacinto Wildlife Area staff, gathered in the check station parking lot at 6:00 AM for the much-delayed volunteer clean-up day. Due to the access problems on Davis Road Tom couldn’t schedule this work day as early as usual but now that Davis Road has been repaired access is no longer a problem.
Tom advised the assembled volunteers the good news that it appears that the Riverside County Department of Transportation is intending on doing more work on Davis Road, hopefully, to perfect the drainage and prevent the type of damage the road suffered this past season from happening again. Tom said they were out surveying the road just recently.
One problem that the delay in this work day created was that we weren’t able to go out to the blinds and do the clean-up we were expecting to do. Since we are now well into the nesting season on the wildlife area there are too many ground nesting birds nesting around the blind areas and it was feared our activities might inadvertently damage some nests and eggs.
However, the day was not a waste by any means. Two of the volunteers, Terry and Frank, volunteered to stucco the new wall surrounding the restroom building and brought their tools and expertise to accomplish this. There were also areas around the check station that needed to be cleared of weeds and rocks and leveled in preparation for gravel that will be brought in to cover the area. With the assembled man (and woman) power these tasks were accomplished in short order.
Stucco Work
Leveling around the walkways
I was able to get out into the wildlife area and check things out before we left. SJ, as usual, looks great. There is a lot of food growing and a lot of birds, ducks and other types, using the area. And, great news, Mystic Lake is back and appears to be big enough that it should still be around by the time the season opens again. If history holds true Mystic should be a game changer for SJ and will improve hunting there quite a bit.
Eared Greb
Tri-colored Blackbird
Avocet
Duck Food!
Mystic Lake
SJ Scenery, Beautiful as Usual
After the work was completed the SJ Staff and the volunteers met at George’s Pizza on Florida Street in Hemet for a well-deserved lunch before they parted ways for the day. The San Jacinto Staff and the volunteers would like to say thank you to the owners of George’s Pizza for generously providing lunch today after our work day with the best pizza in town! Thank you for all your support.
The Staff at San Jacinto would like to extend a big thanks to everyone that came out and worked hard to clean up good old SJ. Also, a special thanks to volunteers Terry and Frank for their expertise and great work on the wall today.
The Volunteers and George and his Wife From George’s Pizza (Thanks again for the Pizza!)
Tom told me he’s going to schedule another Blind Clean-up Day after the nesting season is over so we can get out there and do the necessary clean-up. That will likely be in late June or early July. As soon as the date is set we’ll announce it here at SoCalHunt.
SoCalHunt 
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