Date: 3/25/25 11:39 am From: Howard Friedman via groups.io <howardnfriedman...> Subject: Re: [southbaybirds] Palo Alto Ruddy Turnstone location
Lol
On Mon, Mar 24, 2025, 1:57 PM Charles Coston via groups.io <costoncj=
<gmail.com...> wrote:
> All
> To simplify seeing Mike's location, I checked Google Maps. The only
> object on the mudflat found anywhere near Mike's location is something,
> surely the subject rock, at 36.4674, -122.1112. Thanks Mike for locating
> this on county maps. Too bad it's in San Mateo County. Maybe
> we could move the rock? Or the boundary?
> Charles Coston
>
> On Sun, Mar 23, 2025 at 5:41 PM m_m_rogers via groups.io <m.m.rogers=
> <comcast.net...> wrote:
>
>> All,
>>
>> Today 3/23/25, I checked the San Francisquito Creek delta from the Palo
>> Alto Baylands boardwalk, hoping to find the Ruddy Turnstone reported there
>> three days ago. I had no luck finding any turnstones, either from the
>> boardwalk or from the San Francisquito Creek mouth, but did find the
>> rock/submerged tree on which the bird was photographed (it has a
>> distinctive finger-like projection off the top right).
>>
>> The situation with the county line separating San Mateo County and Santa
>> Clara County (SCL) is complicated in this part of the bay. A nice summary
>> of the issues can be found on the SCVBA website:
>> https://scvbirdalliance.org/san-francisquito-creek-mouth. As noted on
>> that webpage, the boundary shown on the older USGS maps (1997 and before)
>> and the Santa Clara County sccgov website are the same, but disagree with
>> the more recent USGS maps, which shift the boundary a hundred meters or so
>> further north and include more mudflats in SCL on the south side of the
>> delta. (The historical USGS maps for this area can be found here: https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/viewer/#12/37.4415/-122.1426 >> ). <https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/viewer/#12/37.4415/-122.1426> >>
>> So the question is, where is the turnstone "rock" in relation to the
>> county boundary. I was able to triangulate an approximate position today by
>> viewing the rock from the end of the boardwalk, from the San Francisquito
>> Creek mouth, and from a few locations in between. From the end of the
>> boardwalk the rock was about 15 degrees to the right of the Cooley Landing
>> Education Center (my iPhone compass works better with relative directions
>> rather than absolutes). From the creek mouth it was about 77 degrees
>> (East), just left of a channel marker. From all viewing locations it
>> appeared this rock was along the edge of the channel that emanates from the
>> outfall channel that runs along the airport and then turns northeast into
>> the bay (this is a separate and more southerly channel than that of San
>> Francisquito Creek). This channel can easily be seen on Google maps. With
>> this information, I was able to get an approximate location of 37.466890,
>> -122.107415 for the rock. This location is a hundred meters or more north
>> of the new USGS county line and about double that north of the old
>> USGS/sccgov county line, and thus in San Mateo County.
>>
>> Mike Rogers
>> Sunnyvale
>>
>>
>>
>
Do not disclose information that identifies the location of nesting birds of any species, to minimize stress on the nesting birds and the risk of vandalism or abuse.
