Rufus Visits Camp Sycamore Ridge
by Jed Maebius
For 35 years our family has owned Camp Sycamore Ridge on the Upper Cibolo Creek Road. It is a beautiful 31-acre tract back in the canyons and right on the creek near the end of the road. The days of an active summer boys camp date to the 1950's and 1960's. There were one and two week sessions of the camp in the summer. The registration fee was $10.00, and Dr. Day was the camp doctor. In the late afternoon during rest time, the activity was to "read good books from camp library," according to the camp brochure.
When we bought the property in 1974, most of the camp buildings were still standing. The camp has changed little since that time, except for a little upkeep. There is still a beautiful, rustic dining hall with one of the camp dining tables. There is still a great baseball field.
In 1974 we had 4 young children. Although we lived in San Antonio, we spent every weekend at Camp Sycamore Ridge while our chldren were growing up. It became our most precious family sanctuary, and still is now when our children bring our grandchildren to visit.
Our three sons learned to hunt and fish there, and our daughter learned to be a vegetarian because of her brothers hunting and fishing. We all learned about wonderful treasures on our proerty such as maple trees, nesting hawks, scissortail flycatchers and madrone trees. Each new year brought new surprises of one sort or another from nature.
In 1982, we witnessed one of those special surprises. My oldest son and I were turkey hunting hoping to find a small flock of turkeys in a gulley where we had seen them before. My son had his special turkey caller that he had carefully mastered. He "squawked" the caller, and then we waited quietly. No response. He repeated the "squawk." Still no response. We waited in silence. Nothing. Then we started to hear something. But it was not one or two turkeys. It wasn't a bird sound at all. It was the sound of car doors closing and the muffled chatter of people. We ran over the hill and down to the road by the creek. There were about 9 cars parked in a row, and people were running excitedly back and forth by the creek.
I inquired as to the purpose of these people and was informed that they were part of the annual Audabon Bird Count that takes place all across the country every January. Its purpose is to take a census count of kinds and numbers of birds. These bird watchers had just indentified "Rufus" as our family later came to call him. He was a rufous-capped warbler from Central America, and he wasn't supposed to be here. He was way too far North.
These bird watchers called their friends, and soon there were cars everywhere. It seems many people were interested in seeing this small bird.
Needless to say, our turkey hunting was over for that day. In the next week, several hundred serious bird watchers came from all over the country to visit Rufus.It was an amazing phenomenon. A reporter called from the San Antonio Light newspaper to interview me. I told him that our whole family was excited to have Rufus visiting Camp Sycamore Ridge. When my son read the article and my quote(see attached), he said, "daddy, that's a lie. I'm not excited Rufus is here. All those people out there every day are going to ruin the hunting."
Rufus stayed for about 10 days. Then he suddenly disappeared. But he proved to be one of the most distinguished visitors ever to visit Camp Sycamore Ridge. And he is one of the wonders of nature that makes our whole family still love this sanctuary.
