Date: 9/5/26 8:05 pm From: <reports...> Subject: [cobirds] Mount Zion Hawk Watch at Windy Saddle Park (05 Sep 2026) 18 Raptors
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
Observation start time: 08:30:00
Observation end time: 12:30:00
Total observation time: 4 hours
Official Counter: Ajit Antony
Observers: Liza Antony
Visitors:
Many hikers with many questions today. We were able to show a group 3 TV
soaring, and explained how that conserves energy for migration. A family
with two small children I showed different more distant TVs, and I told
them they probably couldn't see them without binoculars, and showed perched
on one of the antenna through my scope, their son aged 7 years said he
could see them (without optics), his father told us that he was probably
lying, I explained that children have very good eyesight and our
grandchildren can find hawks that I can't see! A young man who had just
moved to Golden 2 weeks ago was looking at the "river" below us, I
explained it was Clear Creek and this was Clear Creek Canyon in front of us
to the north, he said he was planning to drive there tomorrow, I told him
it led to Central City, and because his partner said she was an artist,
told them that they have a good opera there, unfortunately the season was
over. Because they asked I told them the Denver has a vibrant arts scene,
and that the Colorado Shakespeare Festival was excellent, but their season
was over too. Comments from hikers included Awesome, That's so cool, when
we told them what we were doing. Someone wanted to know whether we have a
team counting here, and I pointed to Liza and myself and said That's it. I
explained we had started August 1st, when most hawk watches start in
September, in order to discover whether Swainson's Hawk migrate early,
here. I explained as of yesterday there were 64 hawk watches reporting to
Hawkcount, the huge numbers of raptor seen at the 2 Veracruz hawk watch
sites.
Weather:
The usual wildfire smoke over Denver which cleared up by the 12 MDT hour,
very hot today, a lot of cumulus clouds and later cirrus clouds, light
winds from the East, though the winds aloft were predicted to come from the
North and the Northeast.
Raptor Observations:
Today was a very strange migration day here, in that there were no local
raptors in flight for a long time. The first migrant at 9:51 a.m. was an RT
very high and far to the South, so we looked higher to the south and to the
east and we had good cloud cover to see them by, but we couldn't find any.
Liza was following an OS with her scope and it took a long time to migrate
and she managed to find a TV and a CH as scope birds fortuitously.
The Soaring Forecast of the NWS predicted lift of 20 ft per second with
thermal height of 13,832 ft AGL which is over a mile above this watch.
Non-migrant raptors: RT 5, TV 9.
Non-raptor Observations:
The 2 paragliders at 10:45 a.m. had no lift, but the ones over an hour
later had very good lift.
STJA 1, WEBL 2, SPTO 1, CORA 6.
Predictions:
A slight chance of showers between noon and 3 pm. Mostly sunny, with a high
near 91. Light and variable wind becoming east northeast 5 to 8 mph in the
afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
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Report submitted by Ajit Antony (<aiantony...>)
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