Mount Zion Hawk Watch at Windy Saddle Park
Golden, Greater Denver, Colorado, USA
To see hourly weather data and details of migrant raptors, look up this watch at hawkcount.org. 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 if you are interested. See https://groups.google.com/g/cobirds/c/Oznn4uc6MBk
| Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 14, 2026 |
| Species |
Day's Count |
Month Total |
Season Total |
| Black Vulture |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Turkey Vulture |
16 |
72 |
177 |
| Osprey |
0 |
16 |
18 |
| Bald Eagle |
0 |
1 |
2 |
| Northern Harrier |
0 |
1 |
2 |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk |
0 |
3 |
6 |
| Cooper's Hawk |
1 |
39 |
53 |
| American Goshawk |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Broad-winged Hawk |
13 |
13 |
13 |
| Red-tailed Hawk |
3 |
154 |
311 |
| Rough-legged Hawk |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Swainson's Hawk |
0 |
70 |
85 |
| Ferruginous Hawk |
0 |
1 |
1 |
| Golden Eagle |
0 |
1 |
2 |
| American Kestrel |
4 |
47 |
67 |
| Merlin |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Peregrine Falcon |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Prairie Falcon |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Mississippi Kite |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Unknown Accipitrine |
0 |
2 |
2 |
| Unknown Buteo |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Unknown Falcon |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Unknown Eagle |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Unknown Raptor |
0 |
1 |
2 |
| Total: |
37 |
421 |
744 |
| Observation start time: |
08:30:00 |
| Observation end time: |
13:45:00 |
| Total observation time: |
5.25 hours |
| Official Counter |
Ajit Antony |
| Observers: |
Liza Antony |
Visitors:
7 hikers had questions for us as to what we were looking at and only 2 of them from High Island Texas who therefore knew about birds, birders and had liked movie The Big Year. They said they would get interested in birding when they retired. I told them about a surgeon 15 years older than me who always planned to do different things including travel when he retired, and unfortunately developed metastatic kidney cancer and died at 57 years, so I recommended that if they have any interests they engage with them now. Also I know many physicians who were only interested in the practice of medicine with no other interests, consequently when they retired after a year of travel, a number of them didn't know what to do with themselves went back to work! Sad. In our case we had so many interests other than birding and hawk watching while both of us were practicing medicine that our retirement was seamless. I told them that they could see that I was a philosopher as well. The man's father was a birder, so I suggested guidance from him as well as joining a local bird club, as well as using the Merlin app, which they had, to figure out what they were hearing while hiking.
Weather:
Winds had blown in from the south last night so this morning the sky was completely overcast but there was no smoke haze over Denver, very clear air, clear visibility to 39 km to DIA, though there was virga between East and SE, winds from the WSW corresponding to the winds aloft at 700 hPa at the level hawks would migrate at, changing to ESE. By 10:00 a.m. DST there was some blue sky from the SW to the North, with very dark large clouds to the SW which bypassed us to the South. The sun came out intimately from 12:19 p.m. on.
Raptor Observations:
The first 0.5 hours we had 3 distant migrants, the first was a TV at 9:41 a.m. MST, after which the 10:00 hour had no migrants and not even local raptors, so it looked as if we would go home early with a low count, however at 11:28 a.m. a BW was seen with the naked eye slightly to the West/ overhead which was joined by 2 more, 2 more low BW easily seen with the naked eye which gradually rose in thermals to the point that we could barely see them with binoculars taking 6 minutes before migrating South, then a BW which took the same path followed by 3 BW which were merely dots in the sky requiring a scope to identify because of their compactness cf RT, flat wings in a soar or because of a 'twitchy' partial flap only. The next hour had 1 more and the next hour had 2 more for a total of 13 BW, uncommon as they are in the West as they are an Eastern breeder. The first local raptor were 2 TV at 12:32 p.m., oddly late. GE 2 adults. RT 1.
Non-raptor Observations:
RBNU 1, TOSO 1, WBNU 1 Eastern subspecies heard, WTSW 5, VGSW 18.PYNU 3, MOBL 1, WEBL 2, STJA1, MOCH 1, BBMA 1, SPTO 2. The Soaring Forecast of the NWS was for lift at 12 feet per second and height of thermals 9241 feet AGL, quite low, only 2,000 ft above the watch.
Predictions:
A chance of showers between noon and 3pm, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 3pm. Increasing clouds, with a high near 73. Light and variable wind becoming east 5 to 7 mph in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 30%.
Report submitted by Ajit Antony (
aiantony@earthlink.net)
More information at
hawkcount.org: [
Site Profile] [
Day Summary] [
Month Summary]
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