Thanet Birding - Birding main page
Foreness - Margate Cemetery - Minnis Bay - Minster - North Foreland - Northdown Park
Pegwell Bay - Ramsgate Cemetery - Ramsgate Harbour

MINSTER MARSHES

Rather a glorifying name, since they might have been marshes once but now they're just rough grazing. Not exactly a birding mecca, either, though stuff does turn up here from time to time. Even more might be recorded if more people kept an eye on the place.

Minster lies on the B2048, which runs from the A256 Ramsgate-Sandwich road at Richborough power station to the A253 Ramsgate-Canterbury road which it joins at Monkton. From the centre of the village head south to the railway station. There is a level crossing there, and a pot-holed track will take you up to the sewage farm.

The sewage farm is private and you can't get in, or so I've been led to believe through the years. Behind it is a tangled patch of scrub, and beyond that the river Stour. You can follow the river bank eastwards towards the power station, but only so far - sooner or later you'll have to turn back. Or you can follow the river westwards to Pluck's Gutter, where you can down a pint at the Dog And Duck before slogging back. Thrilling, huh?

Birds

Yes, there are some. Winter is probably the best time of year, though there's rarely much here that can't be had more easily and in greater numbers further up the Stour Valley towards Canterbury (Stodmarsh, Westbere and Seaton). There's usually a few Sparrowhawk, Merlin and Hen Harrier around, occasionally Short-eared Owl too. Golden Plover can be numerous. There's usually a Grey Wagtail around the sewage plant, and they might even breed there. The fields can hold geese if there's an influx. The severe winter of 1978/9 produced a flock of some 90 Barnacle Goose, with Pinkfoot and Bean also having been recorded over the years, albeit irregularly.

There was an attempt at starting a ringing programme in the late 1970s (by my school French teacher, no less) and it turned up an Aquatic Warbler and a Woodchat Shrike, so migrants do move through here. Just not very many of them.

So, hardly a hot spot, but you might drop in after a trip to Pegwell which is what I normally do.

Thanet Birding - Birding main page
Foreness - Margate Cemetery - Minnis Bay - Minster - North Foreland - Northdown Park
Pegwell Bay - Ramsgate Cemetery - Ramsgate Harbour