Golden, Greater Denver, Colorado, USA
This is a new raptor migration site identified and designated so only in mid-September 2024. This is Colorado's 1st fall hawk watch. 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.
| Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 09, 2024 | |||
| Species | Day's Count | Month Total | Season Total |
| Black Vulture | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Turkey Vulture | 0 | 5 | 26 |
| Osprey | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Bald Eagle | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Northern Harrier | 1 | 4 | 9 |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk | 0 | 10 | 34 |
| Cooper's Hawk | 1 | 25 | 73 |
| American Goshawk | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Broad-winged Hawk | 0 | 1 | 15 |
| Red-tailed Hawk | 4 | 21 | 92 |
| Rough-legged Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Swainson's Hawk | 1 | 2 | 36 |
| Ferruginous Hawk | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Golden Eagle | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| American Kestrel | 1 | 21 | 132 |
| Merlin | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Peregrine Falcon | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Prairie Falcon | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Mississippi Kite | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unknown Accipiter | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unknown Buteo | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Unknown Falcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unknown Eagle | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unknown Raptor | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Total: | 12 | 96 | 451 |
| Observation start time: | 10:00:00 |
| Observation end time: | 13:30:00 |
| Total observation time: | 3.5 hours |
| Official Counter | Ajit Antony |
| Observers: | Liza Antony |
Visitors:
A young woman inquired what we were looking at.
Weather:
The prediction was for light winds NW>NE>ENE, the change to NE happening at 11 AM MDT. When we got to the watch the winds were already from the ENE, cloud cover 35% and progressively increasing to 85% but mainly to the west, though on the east there was a finger-breadth of solid white cloud between North and SE, excellent visibility to 39 km with mild haziness, low humidity 14% and temperature 26-20°C. The winds aloft according to earth.nullschool.net were from the WNW, and by the afternoon clouds did get pushed to the east, in addition to thermal capping clouds forming and dissipating east, by the last hour we had 75% cloud cover to the east. In the 2nd hour very dark clouds dropping virga were south of us. According to the Soaring Forecast from the NWS if the trigger temperature of 82°F/28.2°C was reached, and it was predicted to happen at 11:30 AM MDT, then the maximum rate of lift would be 1400 feet/minute or 7.1 m/s with excellent an soaring index.
Raptor Observations:
There were few migrants raptors found today, and we wondered whether because of the predicted thermal development, the raptors were higher than we could see with binoculars, which often happens in the East with NE winds according to Flight Strategies of Migrating Hawks by Paul Kerlinger. I facetiously thought to myself that maybe we should come on days with good cloud cover rather than a specific wind, and we may miss (presumably) fewer raptors, though the cloud cover did help us find distant ones. What we missed in numbers we made up in quality, in that we got one of the Grail birds for hawk watchersâ€" the Bird of the Dayâ€" an immature American Goshawk (our 1st of the fall season) which Liza found naked eye just north of us, being attacked by a male American Kestrel which was about half the size of the larger accipiter, which gave us a clue that it wasn't a CH. It had curved leading and trailing edges to its wings like an SS, a wide body, and a wide tail which looked like an extension of the body with a rounded end, streaked chest and abdomen, very stable, flapping only once. Non-migrant raptors: adult GE attacked by an RT and dove into the trees north of Lookout Mountain, BE 2 adult â€" 1 over the mountains with a dihedral which is a ridge-linked phenomenon which helps stability, RT 6.
Non-raptor Observations:
Townsend's Solitaire 2,Common Raven 6, Steller's Jay 1, Mountain Bluebird female 1, Rock Wren 1, White-crowned Sparrow 1, Northern Flicker 2 heard.
Predictions:
NW changing to NNE winds. We will be counting next on Friday when the winds would be similar to today.
Report submitted by Ajit Antony (aiantony@earthlink.net)
More information at hawkcount.org: [Site Profile] [Day Summary] [Month Summary]
Directions to site:
From I-70 from Northeast Denver, take Route 58, then a left turn going south on
Route 6, the 1st exit is for Lookout Mountain Road, turn right and follow the
clothes to find Windy Saddle Park parking lot on the right.
From I-70 from points west of Denver, take the Lookout Mountain Road and follow
it to the Windy Saddle Park parking lot, a longer route.
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