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 29, 2026 |
| Species |
Day's Count |
Month Total |
Season Total |
| Black Vulture |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Turkey Vulture |
26 |
143 |
248 |
| Osprey |
2 |
24 |
26 |
| Bald Eagle |
0 |
4 |
5 |
| Northern Harrier |
0 |
17 |
18 |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk |
0 |
16 |
19 |
| Cooper's Hawk |
13 |
166 |
180 |
| American Goshawk |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Broad-winged Hawk |
2 |
102 |
102 |
| Red-tailed Hawk |
18 |
318 |
475 |
| Rough-legged Hawk |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Swainson's Hawk |
1 |
174 |
189 |
| Ferruginous Hawk |
0 |
1 |
1 |
| Golden Eagle |
1 |
13 |
14 |
| American Kestrel |
3 |
109 |
129 |
| Merlin |
0 |
4 |
4 |
| Peregrine Falcon |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Prairie Falcon |
0 |
1 |
2 |
| Mississippi Kite |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Unknown Accipitrine |
0 |
3 |
3 |
| Unknown Buteo |
0 |
6 |
7 |
| Unknown Falcon |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Unknown Eagle |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Unknown Raptor |
0 |
9 |
10 |
| Total: |
66 |
1110 |
1433 |
| Observation start time: |
08:15:00 |
| Observation end time: |
15:30:00 |
| Total observation time: |
7.25 hours |
| Official Counter |
Ajit Antony |
| Observers: |
Liza Antony |
Visitors:
A couple who had visited 3 weeks ago were back and asked just many questions - how many raptors we had seen, amazed that we had 55 for the day. They insisted that we tell them the number of migrant raptors and explain that 55 was the number of migrants (excellent for Denver in fall). Another visitor asked what we were looking at.
Weather:
Completely overcast just like yesterday except a silver lining, far to the Northeast was sunlight. Stratus clouds all over, with beautiful asperitas clouds to the SSE. Chilly. Virga to the north. Light winds from the NE, and the winds aloft were from the NNE to NE. Minimal haze to the east/DIA.
Raptor Observations:
In the parking lot a juvenile CH was chasing a BBMA, much too large a prey, I would have thought. Playing at hunting? The first migrant at 10:01 a.m. MDT was a juvenile SW. There were no migrants until the clouds parted so that sunlight could hit the ground and create thermals. A non-migrant RT chased a migrant CH. A migrant CH dove on an RT perched on top of a high tension power pole 10x and then continued its migration. An adult GE migrated through at 1:46 p.m., another at 2:54 p.m. over Denver was lost when I went to my scope, and was not counted as a migrant. I stayed late this afternoon, one of the few days without afternoon thunderstorms to see if they would be any low migrants after the sun got hidden behind clouds to the West, but all the hawks continued to be binocular raptors except a juvenile RT which came at eye level through the Kestrel Channel 'escorted' by an adult RT. In the last 36 minutes there were no migrants. Non-migrant raptors: GE 1, RT 4, TV 5.
Non-raptor Observations:
https://ebird.org/checklist/S397629502 Around 500 Sandhill Crane flying south, so far that they could not be heard at all. A paraglider at 11:00 a.m. had no lift and could not even reach our level. The one at noon had excellent lift and went very high. Interestingly today is the only day I have ever seen a Soaring Forecast with a lift of 0 meters per second, and the predicted height of thermals was only 4,199 ft AGL by 1:45 p.m. MDT - below the level of the watch. However that seems to have been predicted on the basis of perhaps continuing cloud cover, which broke enough to allow the sun to produce thermals which the buteos used.
Predictions:
A cold front is going through Denver tomorrow with a 65% chance of rain by 9:00 a.m., so we will not count tomorrow. Thursday after the front goes through should be excellent for migrant raptors. The winds aloft are expected to be from the N>NE>E.
Report submitted by Ajit Antony (
aiantony@earthlink.net)
More information at
hawkcount.org: [
Site Profile] [
Day Summary] [
Month Summary]
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