Thanet Birding - Birding main page
Foreness - Margate
Cemetery - Minnis Bay - Minster - North
Foreland - Northdown Park
Pegwell Bay - Ramsgate
Cemetery - Ramsgate Harbour
| Follow the road from Margate sea front
sticking as close to the cliff top as possible.
Eventually you find yourself facing a miniature golf
course with what looks like a giant concrete blockhouse
beyond it. Move closer, and you will find that it is
indeed a giant concrete blockhouse. This is the Foreness
Point sewage pumping station, though it also houses a
Coastguard station and the local RSPB group have a hide
there as well (but you can't get in without a key).
Looking out to sea you have Palm Bay to your left (ie;
west), and Botany Bay to your right (east) where olde
tyme smugglers and HM Customs once fought a pitched
battle with casualties on both sides. You can park opposite Palm Bay school (once an overgrown carpark that has harboured Red-backed Shrike and Booted Warbler in its time) and walk along the clifftop or round the back of the putting green to the Ridings, a broad swathe of unmown grass that separates the cliff edge from the local housing estate. There is a promenade at the foot of the cliff along Palm Bay as far as the Point itself; beyond that, there is a real danger of getting cut off by the tide. |
 |
Foreness Point, looking across Palm Bay at high tide. |
The Sites
(1) - Foreness Point
Foreness is a reputable seawatching point, and the low cliffs are
perfect to watch from (except for the total lack of shelter,
unless you can get in the RSPB hide). Northerly and easterly
winds are unsurprisingly the best; westerlies are a washout for
seabirds, though they can produce profitable vis mig of
passerines in spring and autumn. Thanet is a recognised SSSI for
its wintering wader populations, and various species can be seen
feeding on the rocks from September to May. (At low tide you can
walk out along the old sewage outfall to the very edge of the
rocks.) Purple Sandpiper are still regular, though numbers are
now only a tenth of the once-regular 70 or more. They are easiest
to find when the rocks are only half exposed, and Palm Bay is
fairly dependable. Skuas are sometimes attracted to the gulls
flocking around the sewage outfall in August/September. The
overgrown clifftops can harbour warblers and other small birds on
passage, so worth checking in fall conditions. A regular winter
flock of Great Crested Grebes can number up to a hundred birds,
sometimes with a Red-necked in amongst them.
|
(2) - The Putting Green Popular with Wheatears, wagtails and pipits. There is a regular gull roost here in the winter which can offer good views of any Mediterranean Gulls that happen to be present. Some of the waders also feed here at high tide. |
The gull roost (or part of it) on the putting green. No Meds in this shot, though there was one here the day before. |
| (3) - Botany Bay Some of the waders often roost here at high tide, though they are prone to disturbance from dogs. Fulmars breed on the cliffs as they do elsewhere around Thanet, and there is often a wintering Black Redstart at the foot of the cliffs. (4) - Whiteness Bay |
|
| Botany Bay, viewed from Foreness. The chalk stack at the far end of the bay is Whiteness. |
Rarities seen at Foreness over the years include Bittern, Cory's Shearwater, Long-tailed Skua*, Sabine's Gull, Richard's Pipit,* Tawny Pipit*, Red-rumped Swallow*, Bluethroat, Aquatic Warbler*, Melodious Warbler, Booted Warbler, Barred Warbler*, Pied Wheatear and Arctic Redpoll* but my favourite has got to be the Gyrfalcon* on April 29th 1979. Yes, I did see it. Five minutes either side and I'd have missed it, though.
Thanet Birding - Birding main page
Foreness - Margate
Cemetery - Minnis Bay - Minster - North
Foreland - Northdown Park
Pegwell Bay - Ramsgate
Cemetery - Ramsgate Harbour
