Date: 9/6/26 6:46 pm From: <reports...> Subject: [cobirds] Mount Zion Hawk Watch at Windy Saddle Park (06 Sep 2026) 21 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: 08:15:00
Observation end time: 13:00:00
Total observation time: 4.75 hours
Official Counter: Ajit Antony
Observers: Liza Antony, Robert Hill
Visitors:
Robert Hill a geologist from Westminster read our reports on COBirds and
had wanted to come up for the past few weeks, and finally our mention of
Kirstin Chapman who's kestrels he has gone to and visited, made his
decision to come up this morning to the watch. He was able to find us some
hawks to the north which turned out to be non-migrants, but continuing to
look in that area we were able to find 3 CH migrants. We were able to show
him how to make out a juvenile RT even at a great distance from the
translucent rectangular windows just inside the wing tips, and he began
identifying them with his binoculars and scope.
Being an extrovert Robert was very comfortable interacting with the many
hikers who asked us numerous questions about hawk watching, hawk watches,
Hawkcount, HMA, the flocking behavior of BW and SW on migration, our
binoculars and scopes, thermal formation and thermal used by raptors, that
there is an even larger migration at night of passerines. We showed a few
hikers TVs perched on the antennas on Lookout Mountain, including once
allowing a couple to look through his binoculars. A woman wanted to know
when we see cranes, and I suggested using the Merlin app with the bar
graphs. The comments we got from hikers were Cool and Super cool at what we
were doing.
Weather:
There was much more Wildfire smoke over and around Denver compared to this
past week which Limited clear visibility initially to 6 km going to 19 km
in the 10:00 MST hour and 20 km only by the last hour. There were cirrus
and cumulus clouds to the East and a huge high cirrus cloud to the South,
light winds from the East.
Raptor Observations:
The first migrant was an RT over the middle of Lookout Mountain going south
at 9:39 a.m. DST.
Today's highlight was 2 juvenile Cooper's Hawks which came low from the
north, dove on each other repeatedly, circled the watch 40 ft away, and
then a scant 15 ft from us. Beautiful. Likely from the same nest.
Non-migrant raptors: CH 1, RT 3, TV 5.
Non-raptor Observations:
WBNU Eastern subspecies heard! WTSW 5, STJA 2, MOCH 1, BTHU 1, CORA 2.
19 paragliders, the initial ones at 10:00 a.m. DST had no lift and stayed
well below us over golden while the ones an hour later had moderate left
doing a little above our level while the ones who went up at noon had
tremendous lift going really high and soaring far to the North as well as
the South where they couldn't be even seen with the naked eye. The Soaring
Forecast of the NWS predicted lift at 18 ft per second with a maximum
thermal height of 12,081 ft AGL, a mile above the watch. That's how high
raptors could fly at!
Predictions:
A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 3pm. Mostly cloudy,
with a high near 87. West-southwest wind around 6 mph becoming light and
variable.
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Report submitted by Ajit Antony (<aiantony...>)
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