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: Oct 18, 2026 |
| Species |
Day's Count |
Month Total |
Season Total |
| Black Vulture |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Turkey Vulture |
0 |
21 |
269 |
| Osprey |
0 |
3 |
29 |
| Bald Eagle |
0 |
2 |
7 |
| Northern Harrier |
0 |
7 |
25 |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk |
2 |
23 |
42 |
| Cooper's Hawk |
7 |
82 |
262 |
| American Goshawk |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Broad-winged Hawk |
0 |
7 |
109 |
| Red-tailed Hawk |
18 |
143 |
618 |
| Rough-legged Hawk |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Swainson's Hawk |
0 |
5 |
194 |
| Ferruginous Hawk |
0 |
1 |
2 |
| Golden Eagle |
1 |
8 |
22 |
| American Kestrel |
0 |
14 |
143 |
| Merlin |
1 |
2 |
6 |
| Peregrine Falcon |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Prairie Falcon |
0 |
0 |
2 |
| Mississippi Kite |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Unknown Accipitrine |
0 |
1 |
4 |
| Unknown Buteo |
0 |
1 |
8 |
| Unknown Falcon |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Unknown Eagle |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Unknown Raptor |
1 |
8 |
18 |
| Total: |
30 |
328 |
1761 |
| Observation start time: |
08:00:00 |
| Observation end time: |
16:00:00 |
| Total observation time: |
8 hours |
| Official Counter |
Ajit Antony |
| Observers: |
Eliane Walters, Liza Antony |
Visitors:
Eliane Walters who came for the DFO Mount Zion Hawk Watch trip we led 2 weeks ago came with her wife Jules Burke who couldn't make the DFO trip, and with her parents-in-law, came for an hour to the watch, binoculars in hand. She found a few hawks. Jukes found us 2 adults GE to the NE which after circling around for a while, flew one behind the other arrow straight toward the SW, one of them then perched on the westernmost antenna on Lookout Mountain while the other soared awhile, then did a roller coaster pattern of territorial flight, then landed right next to the other one. 15 minutes later they were found to the NE, then to the North. Many hikers had many questions of us about hawk migration that we answered. 2 young men chatted with us for half an hour, and another one for the same length of time. We recommended the Merlin app to many, to those who had the app already we recommended getting binoculars and joining a local bird club. One man asked if we had seen any Sasquatch. Yes. How many, 5? Yes. Probably a family unit. I replied Yes they were all fighting so it must have been a family unit.
Weather:
Only a mild haze around Denver which cleared up by the 11:00 hour MDT, winds starting from the WSW changing as usual to ESE, 40% cloud cover to begin with, progressively increasing to 85%, all cirrus more to the West to begin with but spreading Eastward to give us a good backdrop to see hawks against. Even at 4:00 p.m. MDT there were strong thermals for I could see a paraglider and a hang glider circling and rising in one of them to the NE. I stayed until 5:00 p.m. MDT in order to check out whether with the drop in temperature after 3:00 p.m. there would be any low raptors migrating, especially against the very good cloud cover I could scan with binoculars against, and the answer was very few, unless they were flying higher than I could see with binoculars, even with cirrus clouds which are at 20,000-40,000 ft high. There does not seem to be any late afternoon and evening AK flights as documented at Dinosaur Ridge Hawk Watch in spring.
Raptor Observations:
It took until 9:43 a.m. until the 1st raptor, an SS adult which came by at eye level and very close through Clear Creek Canyon just north of the watch. A taiga Merlin at 2:59 p.m. was seen to the NE easily, it flew 30 ft from me and only a little higher, flew South to Lookout Mountain, turned around, passed me again, gradually rose to the West until it was not visible to the naked eye before flying SW. Most of the migrant action was over Lookout Mountain, Lift and thermals being poor today, so they were using mainly ridge lift off Lookout Mountain. Non-migrant raptors: GE 6 adults. One of them late evening I saw close, to the NW, it then stooped at an RT low in the Kestrel Channel, chased it, then flew North over Golden, some minutes later it was high to the NE, gained height and migrated to the SW. RT 5.
Non-raptor Observations:
Around 19 paragliders and 1 hang glider, the first 2 tandem ones at 11:30 a.m. had only moderate lift, while the ones an hour later flew really high. The Soaring Forecast of the NWS had lift only at 3 ft per second and the height of thermals by 2:45 p.m. was predicted to be only 3797 ft AGL. https://ebird.org/checklist/S403611239
Predictions:
Sunny, with a high near 70. Light and variable wind becoming west around 6 mph. The winds aloft predicted by Earth.nullschool.net are from the SE>East.
Report submitted by Ajit Antony (
aiantony@earthlink.net)
More information at
hawkcount.org: [
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Day Summary] [
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