Date: 9/27/26 7:18 pm From: <reports...> Subject: [cobirds] Mount Zion Hawk Watch at Windy Saddle Park (27 Sep 2026) 44 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: 07:45:00
Observation end time: 14:15:00
Total observation time: 5.75 hours
Official Counter: Ajit Antony
Observers: Liza Antony
Visitors:
5 visitors asked whether we were bird watching, and we explained. One woman
said Yeah that she has a Cooper's Hawk in her backyard and wanted to know
whether we had seen any Bald Eagle, we had said we had seen 1 as well as a
GE.
Weather:
Minimal haze over Denver. Winds from the WSW changing to ESE with
increasing force ending in level 4 winds with gusts to level 5. Good cloud
cover all day starting with cirrus, with cumulus clouds coming in from the
West. Mostly sunny.
Raptor Observations:
The first migrant looked like a passerine constantly flapping just over the
NE horizon, and I wondered whether it could be a Merlin, fortunately it
flew under a linear cloud, so I could find it in my scope and confirm that
indeed it was a Merlin. Interestingly when it flew over the trees and
houses well north of Green Mountain even though it was flapping constantly
it lost elevation, dropping below the top of Green Mountain.
Most of the raptors migrated through the Gap closer to Green Mountain until
12:00 PM after which they flew mostly over Lookout Mountain
While Liza was following an adult BE to decide if it was migrating or not,
she excitedly said there was a bunch of smaller birds above it, and we saw
visible as small dots through binoculars 10 BW, confirmed to be small
compact buteos through my scope.
The last migrant but one was an adult Swainson's Hawk which was found to
the NW, and migrated to the SW.
It was difficult to find many migrant raptors today probably because while
the Soaring Forecast of the NWS predicted lift at 21 ft/sec but the maximum
height of thermals was to be at 12407 feet AGL which is 10,000 feet or 2
miles above the watch!
Non-migrant raptors: juvenile GE 1, Adult BE, CH 1, RT 6, TV 4.
Non-raptor Observations:
https://ebird.org/checklist/S397036356?subID=S397036356 3 tandem barraglers at 10:30 AM had no lift, the 4 an hour later had
excellent lift going high, the ones at 12 pm and 1:00 PM had not much lift,
probably because of heavy cloud cover covering the sun, dropping the
thermals' height.
Predictions:
A chance of showers between 9am and 3pm, then a chance of showers and
thunderstorms after 3pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 74. Light and
variable wind becoming west 5 to 7 mph in the afternoon. Chance of
precipitation is 50%.
The winds aloft at 700 hPa, a level migrants would fly at is from the SW.
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Report submitted by Ajit Antony (<aiantony...>)
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