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El Camino Real ChapterEl Camino Real Chapter
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      • Neat Slide Shows
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      • County Features
      • Floridus Milamexa – The Flora of Milam County
      • Birds, Birds Everywhere
      • Our Mammals, Friends and Foe
      • Lovely as a Tree
      • Wildflowers – God’s Bouquet
      • Snakes! Yipes!
      • Soils – That earthy dirty stuff.
    • Special Projects Intro.
      • “Texas Seeds for Success”
      • Big Trees of Milam County
      • Milano Junction Memorial Garden
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  • Website Table of Contents
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Welcome

  • Collage-web1

“The best place to study nature is at one’s own home – 

on the farm, in the mountains, by the sea –

wherever that may be.”

by American Naturalist John Burroughs


Nature At Its Best!

We have a very rich web site chock full of fascinating information about the natural world in which we live, especially here in our beloved Milam County – home of many beautiful natural treasures and abundant wildlife.  Let us share it all with you.

Please see our full Website Table of Contents tab above, and be sure to visit some of our major offerings. Here’s an outline.

  • Calendar and Current Events – our Calendar as maintained on Google Calendar showing highlights, and the latest weekly events email “ECRMN This Week” that is emailed to everyone.
  • Organization tells you who we are and how to contact us, what the Master Naturalist program is all about, how to join, and more.
  • Natural Areas of Interest – pick your favorite area of nature and see what we have for you in terms of definitions, copies of class and advanced training presentations, recommended web sites and our favorite books and guides.  This is one of the richest contents on our website.
  • Chapter Projects – See all our past and current projects, such fun, great education.
    • Volunteer Project Guidelines includes project requirements, guidelines, approval process and more
    • Our “Nature at It’s Best” Newsletters has all our quarterly Newsletters from the beginning of our chapter in 2008 until recently, with several being awarded “Best Newsletter” at the Annual Conferences. We now have a very active Blog for distributing news, events and discoveries.
    • Nature Festivals for “kids” of all ages held for 5 years in a row in Cameron and Rockdale, with great projects and education for youth and adults.
    • Photos provided by members and others, and neat slide shows on nature, includes various photos of classes, our member photo gallery so you can place names with faces, some really great powerpoint slide shows about nature in general. The link is there to our Chapter photo albums on Google Photos which contains a huge variety of photos of past and current events.
    • Nature of Milam County Projects covers numerous special documentation on Milam County features, local birds, mammals, trees, wildflowers and more.
    • Special Projects describes past and current local efforts to document and share some unique goodies, including our present “Bring Back the Monarchs” project with our own Monarch Way Station and Garden.
  • Training, Advanced Training and hours tells about our classes and advanced training opportunities and how to claim hours, including our past and current class curriculums, field trips and more.
  • Library is our collection of chapter guidelines, Bylaws, meeting minutes, reporting templates, and other operating documents.
  • Members Area is a password controlled login area for members only documents: such as our members phone numbers and email / mail addresses, directions to members homes, and financial statements, etc. that are not open to the public.
  • Website Table of Contents is a complete listing of all our pages.

Our Mission:
To develop a corps of well-educated “Master Volunteers” to provide education, outreach, and service dedicated toward the beneficial management of natural resources and natural areas within their communities.

Method:
The program will furnish participants with essential information and strategies to restore and conserve our indigenous species and habitats, on their own land, or anywhere in the County or State.  Throughout training, area experts will cover interesting topics about our natural resources and lead hands-on field trips to area ecosystems.

Projects:
Texas Master Naturalist trainees may select from a wide variety of approved local projects to volunteer their time, including habitat restoration, native plant rescues, wildlife management, school educational projects, public educational presentations, and projects of their own design. The opportunities are limited only by your imagination.


Interested in learning more about the overall program and how to join, Program overview page and How to Join.

Latest State COVID Requirements for Chapter Events

State Web Link

VMS Hours Reporting Portals

Volunteer sign in Link and VMS Portal

Visit Our Facebook Pages

Texas Master Naturalist Page
Our Chapter El Camino Real page

Check out our Chapter Blog!

Nature Along the El Camino Real
At the bottom of the blog you can enter your email and get each post when published.

  • 2018 TMN State Conference
  • Donna Lewis 5000 Hour Award Poster
  • 2018 Class
  • DSCN2388
    Monarch Butterfly Garden Dedication
  • Monarch butterfly garden
  • 2013_ElCaminoReal_Monarch Waystation 19
  • 2013_ElCaminoReal_Monarch Waystation 20
  • male monarch butterfly
  • Giant Swallowtail Butterfly, by Anne Barr
  • hornytoad
    "Horny Toad"
  • Share-are-you-nuts-by-Paula-Engelhardt
    Share? Are you nuts?
  • timber rattlesnake
    Timber Rattlesnake
  • Wildflowers1
  • Bird Sanctuary Dedication
    Bird Sanctuary Dedication
  • 2010_ElCaminoReal_Building Bluebird santuary boxes
    Building Bluebird sanctuary houses
  • Eastern bluebird male, George H. Harrison
  • female bluebird
  • 2015_ElCaminoReal_Sr ctr garden 3
    Lexington Senior Center Garden
  • 2015_ElCaminoReal_Sr ctr garden 5
    Coordinated and built by Sheri and Wesley Sweet
  • It’s a bird!  It’s a plane!
  • 2012_ElCaminoReal_Birding at conference
    At 2012 Conference
  • Nursing Home Fishing Derby, May 08
    Nursing Home Fishing Derby, May 08
  • Bird banding field trip
  • Hard at Work, Ann Collins 3rd Place People in Nature
  • 2010_ElCaminoReal_Nature Fest 2010 (3)
    2010 Nature Fest
  • “Spider Joe” Lapp and spiders.
    "Spider Joe" Lapp and spiders.
  • I found one on my cheek!
  • 2011_ElCaminoReal_Nature Fest 2011 (2)
    Needs no words!
  • 2010_ElCaminoReal_Nature Fest
    Finding artifacts. 2010 Nature Fest.
  • 2014_ElCaminoReal_Nature Fest 2014
    Track Molds. 2014 Nature Fest.
  • 2011_ElCaminoReal_Nature Fest 2011
  • 2011_ElCaminoReal_Nature Fest 2011 (8)
  • 2011_ElCaminoReal_Nature Fest 2011 (9)
  • 2011_ElCaminoReal_Examining Lichen
  • 2013_ElCaminoReal_examining lichen
  • 2013_ElCaminoReal_soil surveying
  • 2012_ElCaminoReal_AppleTreeChildCare teaching 3
  • 2011_ElCaminoReal_Ag in the Classroom
  • 2014_ElCaminoReal_AppleTree summer pgm
  • 2012_ElCaminoReal_AppleTreeChildCare teaching 6
  • 2013_ElCaminoReal_Ag in the classroom

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