Date: 10/18/26 7:56 pm From: <reports...> Subject: [cobirds] Mount Zion Hawk Watch at Windy Saddle Park (18 Oct 2026) 30 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 18, 2026
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Observation start time: 08:00:00
Observation end time: 16:00:00
Total observation time: 8 hours
Official Counter: Ajit Antony
Observers: Eliane Walters, Liza Antony
Visitors:
Eliane Walters who came for the DFO Mount Zion Hawk Watch trip we led 2
weeks ago came with her wife Jules Burke who couldn't make the DFO trip,
and with her parents-in-law, came for an hour to the watch, binoculars in
hand. She found a few hawks. Jukes found us 2 adults GE to the NE which
after circling around for a while, flew one behind the other arrow straight
toward the SW, one of them then perched on the westernmost antenna on
Lookout Mountain while the other soared awhile, then did a roller coaster
pattern of territorial flight, then landed right next to the other one. 15
minutes later they were found to the NE, then to the North.
Many hikers had many questions of us about hawk migration that we answered.
2 young men chatted with us for half an hour, and another one for the same
length of time. We recommended the Merlin app to many, to those who had the
app already we recommended getting binoculars and joining a local bird
club.
One man asked if we had seen any Sasquatch. Yes. How many, 5? Yes. Probably
a family unit. I replied Yes they were all fighting so it must have been a
family unit.
Weather:
Only a mild haze around Denver which cleared up by the 11:00 hour MDT,
winds starting from the WSW changing as usual to ESE, 40% cloud cover to
begin with, progressively increasing to 85%, all cirrus more to the West to
begin with but spreading Eastward to give us a good backdrop to see hawks
against.
Even at 4:00 p.m. MDT there were strong thermals for I could see a
paraglider and a hang glider circling and rising in one of them to the NE.
I stayed until 5:00 p.m. MDT in order to check out whether with the drop in
temperature after 3:00 p.m. there would be any low raptors migrating,
especially against the very good cloud cover I could scan with binoculars
against, and the answer was very few, unless they were flying higher than I
could see with binoculars, even with cirrus clouds which are at
20,000-40,000 ft high. There does not seem to be any late afternoon and
evening AK flights as documented at Dinosaur Ridge Hawk Watch in spring.
Raptor Observations:
It took until 9:43 a.m. until the 1st raptor, an SS adult which came by at
eye level and very close through Clear Creek Canyon just north of the
watch.
A taiga Merlin at 2:59 p.m. was seen to the NE easily, it flew 30 ft from
me and only a little higher, flew South to Lookout Mountain, turned around,
passed me again, gradually rose to the West until it was not visible to the
naked eye before flying SW.
Most of the migrant action was over Lookout Mountain, Lift and thermals
being poor today, so they were using mainly ridge lift off Lookout
Mountain.
Non-migrant raptors: GE 6 adults. One of them late evening I saw close, to
the NW, it then stooped at an RT low in the Kestrel Channel, chased it,
then flew North over Golden, some minutes later it was high to the NE,
gained height and migrated to the SW. RT 5.
Non-raptor Observations:
Around 19 paragliders and 1 hang glider, the first 2 tandem ones at 11:30
a.m. had only moderate lift, while the ones an hour later flew really high.
The Soaring Forecast of the NWS had lift only at 3 ft per second and the
height of thermals by 2:45 p.m. was predicted to be only 3797 ft AGL.
https://ebird.org/checklist/S403611239
Predictions:
Sunny, with a high near 70. Light and variable wind becoming west around 6
mph.
The winds aloft predicted by Earth.nullschool.net are from the SE>East.
========================================================================
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/<010101a1521680ae-f21c7ea8-1514-4b80-834f-cfca3420c98f-000000...>
