Date: 9/15/26 5:59 pm From: <reports...> Subject: [cobirds] Mount Zion Hawk Watch at Windy Saddle Park (15 Sep 2026) 62 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: 14:30:00
Total observation time: 6 hours
Official Counter: Ajit Antony
Observers: Liza Antony
Visitors:
4 hikers were interested and asked questions. A young man carrying
binoculars asked if this was the hawk watch, and when I said Yes, I asked
what the binoculars were for, he said he likes to watch birds, and promptly
left! Other comments were Very cool, I love that from a young woman who
asked about what I was looking at, then wanted to know how many hawks I had
seen, and when I had started counting this morning.
Weather:
A strong cold front had gone through the night before and yet Denver was so
hazy I could only see it because I knew where it was, because of a cold
inversion layer trapping atmospheric pollutants and fine dust particles
carried by the front. Chilly, very pleasant air. Cirrus clouds to the East
and cumulus developing from the West moving East.
Raptor Observations:
I was wondering whether a cold front would bring any raptors here in the
west compared to New York, initially the answer seemed No but by the end of
the day it was a resounding Yes. Very peculiar migration in that the first
half hour had no migrants, a big flurry of 12 migrants in the next hour,
the first being a BW at 10:05 a.m. MDT. The next hour had only 2 migrants,
the hour after only 1, the 1:00 hour had streaming SW, a trio of an adult
with two juveniles, then followed by a stream of 26, followed by 6 followed
by 2 and then two singles, all in a new channel we've never had migrants
fly through before - high 35� North going to the SE through a perfectly
blue sky, the only reason I could find them was as they went SE there was a
large cloud I could see them against, and the ones following I could track
in a blue sky knowing where they might have been.
Non-migrant raptors: RT 2, TV 6.
Non-raptor Observations:
WEBL 1, STJA 1, BTHU 1, GHJU 3, VGSW 5, ROPI 11, WBNU 1 Eastern subspecies
heard, RBNU 1, WTSW 10, BBMA 1, YRWA 1, BGGN 1, TOSO 1, NOFL 1.
2 paragliders at 10:00 a.m. had no lift, and of 4 after 11:30 a.m., 2 had
moderate lift and 2 had none.
The Soaring Forecast from the NWS predicted poor lift at only 3 ft per
second and the height of thermals only 5,014 ft AGL - lower than the watch,
though the large count of raptors including the SW were at level 4 and
level 5 (at the limit of 10x binoculars) height of flight - certainly much
much higher than predicted.
Predictions:
A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 3pm. Partly
sunny, with a high.
Winds aloft are predicted to be from the SW changing to East, by
Earth.nullschool.net
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Report submitted by Ajit Antony (<aiantony...>)
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