Date: 11/20/24 9:18 pm From: <reports...> Subject: [cobirds] Mount Zion Hawk Watch at Windy Saddle Park (20 Nov 2024) 1 Raptors
Mount Zion Hawk Watch at Windy Saddle Park
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: Nov 20, 2024
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Observation start time: 11:00:00
Observation end time: 14:00:00
Total observation time: 3 hours
Official Counter: Ajit Antony
Observers:
Visitors:
A young man from Mexico living in Denver for a year told me he saw a GE 15
minutes ago in the Windy Saddle, and showed me a picture – I expected an
RT, but it was an immature GE.
2 young men wanted to look through my scope, so I showed them a low-power
20x view of Denver and they were totally blown away by the clarity which
they saw the skyscrapers.
Weather:
The forecast was for SW winds with gusts to 15 mph yesterday, and I planned
to come to see what SW winds would provide in November, but this morning
the SW winds were to change by 11 AM to West to WNW with 15 mph gusts by 2
PM. I was thinking of waiting another a few days for more consistent SW
winds, but I looked at earth.nullschool.net and found that there was a
large low-pressure area over Minnesota, which with its anti-clockwise
rotation had a southward component on its west side, so I changed my mind
and decided to come up hoping to have some late migrants may be blown
south to the watch. However at the watch the winds were actually from the
SE! There was a huge cirro-stratus cloud overhead, No extending North-South
as well as East-West which would create a good backdrop for any migrants to
be seen. The air was clear with visibility to 39 km, low humidity 11-15%,
temperature 7°C and steady barometric pressure at the usual 29.92 inches
of mercury.
Raptor Observations:
The only migrant raptor was at 1:15 PM, and RT adult seen far to the SW and
very high, and which kept rising and going southward.
Non-migrant raptors: At 12:01 PM an adult BE on Lookout Mountain and
another eagle below it which I assumed was another one, except it had a
steep dihedral and was an adult GE. At 12:07 PM I saw 2 adult GE at the
same location – 1 missing an 8th left primary and the other without molt.
At the same time there were 3 RT which I lost while looking at the GE, so
they were deemed non-migrants – a problem having only one observer. At
1:24 PM an adult GE at the same location low over the trees. I guess it
isn't a wasted day seeing 2-4 GE, especially for someone like myself who
lived in New York for 50 years, where there are far fewer GE in the eastern
half of the country – only around 5000, compared to 20,000 in the western
US.
Non-raptor Observations:
Steller's Jay 1, Common Raven 1, American Crow 10, Black-billed Magpie 1.
Predictions:
It isn't common to get north or NNE winds at this site without snow at the
same time, as the cold fronts in Colorado drop straight down from the
North. If there are such winds without snow I may be tempted to come up
again in December, but it seems increasingly unlikely to see any more
migrants at this watch. We will start counting again in February (for
potential Prairie Falcon and Golden Eagle) with, hopefully, good numbers of
northbound migrants in March (Ferruginous Hawk) and April (Swainson's
Hawk), to complement the Dinosaur Ridge spring hawk watch, if we can.
========================================================================
Report submitted by Ajit Antony (<aiantony...>)
This is an automated email report from hawkcount.org. If you do not wish to receive these reports,
please send email to <unsubscribe...> to unsubscribe.
--
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group.
To post to this group, send email to <cobirds...>
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds * All posts should be signed with the poster's full name and city. Include bird species and location in the subject line when appropriate.
* Join Colorado Field Ornithologists https://cobirds.org/membership/ ---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+<unsubscribe...>
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/<010101934d27bbd2-c99cfc41-9afd-4258-b334-441a6e1604d7-000000...>
