Date: 10/4/26 4:59 pm From: <reports...> Subject: [cobirds] Mount Zion Hawk Watch at Windy Saddle Park (04 Oct 2026) 13 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 04, 2026
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Observation start time: 08:15:00
Observation end time: 12:00:00
Total observation time: 3.75 hours
Official Counter: Ajit Antony
Observers: Liza Antony
Visitors:
5 hikers asked us what we were looking for, including a young woman who had
just moved here from New Orleans who asked whether we were bird watching,
and when we explained she said that before she had the two children with
her she had worked for the CCC, but hawk watching was out of her
experience.
Weather:
A weak cold front had gone through yesterday without any rain and a high
pressure zone supervened with a subsidence inversion layer causing haziness
from just East of the Table Mountains all the way to the Eastern horizon.
There was a perfectly blue sky all day, and this is going to continue all
week except for Tuesday when there's going to be about 40% cloud cover.
Raptor Observations:
The first Raptor was an adult GE at 9:19 a.m. MDT in the gap between Green
Mountain and Lookout low but it did not migrate.
Instead of a 'noon lull' we had an 'early morning lull' because of the
perfectly blue sky, very few hawks we could see migrating compared to
yesterday, presumably they went high early. The Soaring Forecast of the NWS
predicted lift at 8 ft per second but the height of thermals was only 7392
ft AGL at 11:00 a.m., however the Hawks could have used a ridge lift
extending all the way from northern Colorado along the Front Range of the
Rockies. We did scan straight up with binoculars but couldn't see any
migrants - perhaps too high for binocular detection.
Non-raptor Observations:
https://ebird.org/checklist/S399292730 10 paragliders, the ones starting at 10:45 a.m. MDT had no lift, only 1 got
above our elevation, by 11:30 a.m. 2 had moderate lift only.
Predictions:
Sunny, with a high near 86. West wind 5 to 9 mph becoming calm in the
afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 15 mph.
The winds Aloft at 700 hectopascals was expected to be from the West to
North and then from the NE.
========================================================================
Report submitted by Ajit Antony (<aiantony...>)
This is an automated email report from hawkcount.org. If you do not wish to receive these reports,
please send email to <unsubscribe...> to unsubscribe.
--
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group.
To post to this group, send email to <cobirds...>
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds * All posts should be signed with the poster's full name and city. Include bird species and location in the subject line when appropriate.
* Join Colorado Field Ornithologists https://cobirds.org/membership/ ---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+<unsubscribe...>
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/<010101a1095bc31b-057b9724-825a-4cda-af5e-4164216a375c-000000...>
