Thanet Birding - Birding main page
Foreness - Margate
Cemetery - Minnis Bay - Minster - North
Foreland - Northdown Park
Pegwell Bay - Ramsgate
Cemetery - Ramsgate Harbour
Not only a pleasant site to visit, but also potentially worthwhile if there are obviously migrant passerines about. The northern half could almost be described as wooded, and the council have kindly agreed to let the older areas scrub over in the interests of wildlife conservation. The southern half is open and spacious, with fields and paddocks on all sides.
The cemetery lies on the Manston Road. To get to it, negotiate the Rubik's Cube of a traffic control system on the seafront and turn right at the Clock Tower to head inland. Then turn right under the second railway bridge onto the Ramsgate Road until you hit the traffic lights. Turn half right down College Road under another railway bridge (the long abandoned old Margate/Ramsgate line) and straight through the next set of lights, past the school, and the cemetery is about 400 yards up the road on your right. (Or you can turn right at the lights and descend the hill to take a look at Tivoli Park, mentioned below.)
There is a local birder who flogs the cemetery pretty thoroughly, and he claims to have seen 50 or more species in a day within its walls, which is hardly to be sniffed at. Mind you, that includes just about every common passerine migrant going. Obviously a lot depends on weather conditions, and giving the scrub a thorough flog can take quite a bit of time, even in such a small space. Green Woodpeckers breed here, and there's a fair chance of seeing Crossbill and Hobby in the summer. On the mammalian front, you might see the last remaining albino squirrel.
Reallyrare birds are thin on the ground, but over the years the cemetery has produced Red-backed* and Great Grey* Shrikes, Ortolan, Wryneck, and Hoopoe. Best of all was a Black Stork on June 10th 1983; someone kindly told me about it a few hours after it flew away.
Tivoli Park is not far away and this has been more or less allowed to grow over unchecked. The profuse elders attract sylvia warblers in the autumn, and leaf warblers like the clump of willows in the centre of the depression. I've not seen anything more remarkable here beyond occasional Yellow-browed Warblers, but it's the kind of place that looks as if it ought to turn up trumps one day. Just watch where you put your feet, since no one seems to clear up after their dogs here.
Thanet Birding - Birding main page
Foreness - Margate
Cemetery - Minnis Bay - Minster - North
Foreland - Northdown Park
Pegwell Bay - Ramsgate
Cemetery - Ramsgate Harbour