Golden, Greater Denver, Colorado, USA
This is a new raptor migration site identified and designated in mid-September 2024. This is Colorado's 1st fall hawk watch site, and the second hawk watch in Colorado. To get to the site which is along Lookout Mountain Rd. in Golden, enter either Windy Saddle Park or Mount Zion into Google Maps on your favorite navigation app, or enter the coordinates 39.7368,-105.2454. From the parking lot ascend the stone steps to the watch site. EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO THE HAWK WATCH TO ENJOY THE SPECTACLE OF RAPTOR MIGRATION, EVEN IF YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IDENTIFYING RAPTORS IN FLIGHT. We will help you to learn Raptor ID. See https://groups.google.com/g/cobirds/c/Oznn4uc6MBk
| Daily Raptor Counts: Aug 25, 2026 | |||
| Species | Day's Count | Month Total | Season Total |
| Black Vulture | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Turkey Vulture | 4 | 38 | 38 |
| Osprey | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Bald Eagle | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Northern Harrier | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Cooper's Hawk | 1 | 5 | 5 |
| American Goshawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Broad-winged Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Red-tailed Hawk | 3 | 66 | 66 |
| Rough-legged Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Swainson's Hawk | 0 | 7 | 7 |
| Ferruginous Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Golden Eagle | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| American Kestrel | 0 | 16 | 16 |
| Merlin | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Peregrine Falcon | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Prairie Falcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mississippi Kite | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unknown Accipitrine | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unknown Buteo | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Unknown Falcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unknown Eagle | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unknown Raptor | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total: | 9 | 137 | 137 |
| Observation start time: | 08:45:00 |
| Observation end time: | 11:45:00 |
| Total observation time: | 3 hours |
| Official Counter | Ajit Antony |
| Observers: |
Visitors:
A friendly young Texan commented on my good equipment pointing to my scope. I explained what I was doing. He didn't know that hawks migrate, but knew that geese did. Well you can see them everywhere going south, I said, but you need to go to a specialized place like a hawk watch like this one most of the time to see raptors migrate. I explained that they were around 200+ active hawk watches in the country mostly manned by volunteers like myself, and that the rest had paid professional watches counting 8 hours a day, which he was astonished at. He wanted to know how he could get information on hawk watches and migrating raptors, so I told him about hawkcount.org which he put on his phone. He had no internet access so I showed him the main page showing all the active hawk watches and what they count for the day, how to find a hawk watch in TX, telling him about the huge numbers seen there, explaining how the Eastern, Central and Western flyways all concentrate the hawks, as they don't fly over water as there are no thermals there. I explained about BW which are solitary forest hawks but congregate in huge numbers on migration. He said he uses the Merlin app. I said you obviously like nature, otherwise you wouldn't be here, and suggested since he owned binoculars, I suggested he visit a nearby hawk watch in TX, and perhaps he may want to join a local bird club in TX. He said he would. I said you may develop a new hobby.
Weather:
Denver had the early morning wildfire smoke around it. It was mostly overcast, and with the sun obscured most of the day it was actually cool and pleasant. I wondered whether the cloudy sky would prevent thermals forming, and whether it would reduce the count as a result. The winds were light from the West changing to East, though the winds aloft were predicted from the NW to the NNE. As soon as I got to the watch I could virga to the NE, which happens in dry climates, and is rain falling from the sky but evaporating before it reaches the ground, and by 11:00 a.m. DST I could see virga to the SW with dark clouds to the West, and finally I could see rain falling from the SW to the NW. At 12:30 p.m. DST there was thunder from the SW, and my app showed lightning strikes as close as 7.5 mi away, so I began packing my stuff, and soon after there was a long roll of nearby thunder from the NW, and this time lighting strikes were only 2.7 miles away! I got down as fast as I could. It began lightly drizzling on my way down.
Raptor Observations:
The first raptor aloft was a local RT diving onto a TV 10:06 a.m. DST, and it was very territorial in that it kept accosting every raptor that flew to the area east of the antenna. The first migrant was a TV at 10:08 a.m. By noon I could see 2 migrant RT far to the South as little dots, for which I needed my scope to identify, they were at a tremendous height, though definitely migrants from there path. A PG kept diving on a TV for over a minute, then circled, getting higher and finally after many minutes migrated to the SSW. Most of the migration was around the 2 antenna on the east of Lookout Mountain though one TV flew high to the east losing lift and then finally going south to the west of Green Mountain. The irony of my doing a hawk watch and not seeing any SW, and on my way home seeing a raptor on a tree on Route 58 which was an SW, and at home Liza telling me that you're took our granddaughter Mia to the Arsenal NWR where on the wildlife Loop she saw 1 FH, 3 SW and 2 AK!
Non-raptor Observations:
WEBL 6, WTSW 1, VGSW 11, RBNU 1, SPTO 1, TOSO 1, BTHU 1, CORA 1. 4 paragliders at 11:35 a.m. with excellent lift, in spite of the heavy cloud cover, because of Denver's mile high elevation thermals still form well. According to the Soaring Forecast of the NWS, thermals today had a lift of 13 ft per second, and were expected to reach 10,583 ft above ground level, about 0.5 mi above the watch, which was not too high to be able to see migrants.
Predictions:
A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 3pm. Mostly sunny, with a high near 84. Calm wind becoming east northeast 5 to 7 mph in the afternoon. The winds aloft are predicted by earth.nullschool.net to be from the SW changing to the SE.
Report submitted by Ajit Antony (aiantony@earthlink.net)
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