Sycamore Creek and Mt. Ord, May 10, 2018

Mark and I went to Sycamore Creek and Mt. Ord on Thursday, May 10, 2018. We stopped first at about 7:15 (about a one hour drive) in the town of Sunflower. This is just a short way before the Mt. Ord turn-off from Highway 87. We went on N. Beeline Highway. It’s called a highway, but we were the only car on it. Sycamore Creek runs through Sunflower along the road, and there were a lot of large sycamores. We could only walk along the road because everything else was fenced off (e.g. we couldn’t go down to the creek). There were a lot of birds in the sycamores, but it was difficult to get good photographs because the birds were too far away.

Then we continued driving up to where N. Beeline Highway is blocked to motor traffic. We had read online that you could hike up the road and along the creek. That information was outdated, because the area was fenced off like Fort Knox, and we couldn’t hike there. It was marked ‘Private Property’. Maybe the state sold that property along the highway?

We decided to try another tack, and go to Sycamore Creek from the north. We drove up Highway 87 to the Mt. Ord exit, but instead of turning right to Mt. Ord, we turned left to Sycamore Creek. This road is FR626, but then crosses N. Beeline Highway, and the highway is also blocked there after a few miles. However, before the roadblock, there is a very nice turn off that accesses Sycamore Creek, and it was very active with birds. This location is an ebird.org hotspot.

Next we went up to Mt. Ord. We spent most of our time on the FR1688 turn off (elevation 5600). It was very active. Then we went up to the end of FR626, where the trail to the top starts (elevation 6800). We hiked around there, but not up to the top where the look-out tower is.

We had a great time. We saw a lot of birds. I didn’t get any great close-ups, so most of the photos required more cropping than I like.