Date: 10/2/26 7:51 pm From: <reports...> Subject: [cobirds] Mount Zion Hawk Watch at Windy Saddle Park (02 Oct 2026) 42 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
Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 02, 2026
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Observation start time: 08:45:00
Observation end time: 15:30:00
Total observation time: 6.75 hours
Official Counter: Ajit Antony
Observers: Liza Antony
Visitors:
Lehi German from Kansas City game with his long lens camera and binoculars
visiting family in Denver. He had read our reports on Hawkcount. When I
told him that we have local and migrant GE, he said he had used Google
Gemini AI and asked for the best place to be able to photograph GE close up
and the answer came that it was the "Mount Zion Hawk Watch, the best spot
within 75 miles of Denver!" I directed him to the Kestrel Channel to be
able to photograph raptors from fairly close, and asked him to monitor the
channel, as a result of which he found us a number of raptors. He got
excellent dorsal photographs of CH,SS, RT, AK.
6 hikers asked questions about the watch. A woman who had been here a week
ago asked how many migrants I had seen today. I was able to show a couple a
close RT. Another hiker had attended a talk by Ed Yong at the School of
Mines and had a new appreciation for birds- she did have the Merlin app
when I asked her.
Weather:
Slight haze over Denver and a brown subsidence-inversion layer over the
horizon from East to North. PM 10 was at a moderate level. Cloudless the
entire day.
Because of the inversion layer, according to the Soaring Forecast of the
NWS though the lift was at 10 ft per second the height of thermals was only
8133 ft AGL by 12:30 p.m.
Raptor Observations:
The first migrant was a CH at 9:46 a.m. MDT already a binocular bird.
In the 10-11:00 hour there were numerous hawks flying through the Kestrel
Channel, presumably because the thermals hadn't developed well yet.
Non-migrant raptors: GE adult 1, AK 1, RT 3, TV 4.
Even though after 12:00 p.m. there were very few migrants, or even local
hawks I decided to stay until 4:30 p.m. and observe in order to answer the
question for this site 'When there is a perfectly blue sky and there is an
extended "noon lull" caused by hawks flying too high to be detected even
with binoculars, will migrants start showing up later and lower when the
thermals drop in height?' The answer today was No, with 2 migrants in the
1:00 MDT hour, none in the 2:00 hour and 3 in the 3:00 hour and none in the
30 minutes of the 4:00 hour.
Non-raptor Observations:
WEBL 1, WTSW 2, VGSW 3, STJA 4, BBMA 3, TOSO 2, HOFI 1, NOFL 1, CORA 3.
The 4 paragliders before 11:30 a.m. had no lift, the one at noon had
moderate lift, and the 5 at noon had excellent lift. A paraglider walked
past me with his huge backpack. I asked him why was he here when the others
hiked up from the Lookout Mountain Road close to the 'M.' He said it was
his first time here, and thanked me for my suggestion.
Predictions:
Sunny, with a high near 83. West wind 5 to 9 mph becoming east northeast in
the afternoon.
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Report submitted by Ajit Antony (<aiantony...>)
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