A 16 acre site set inside an abandoned chalk quarry on the Isle of Thanet, Monkton Nature Reserve is managed by the Thanet Countryside Trust. There are over 250 species of flowering plant including 7 types of orchid, and 22 species of butterfly have been recorded. Also innumerable other species of insect, mammal and bird-life. The reserve is home to the first artificial bat cave to be constructed in the UK, normally only in use in the winter months.

There are two ponds inside the reserve, one which is on the quarry floor and is a water-table pond with a fluctuating water level, the other a butyl-lined pond in a secluded location. This pond is overlooked by a small bird hide. Both ponds are regularly visited by grass snakes on hunting expeditions, and are also good breeding sites for the Great Crested Newt. The water-table pond is used by a small number of the rare water vole.

There is a small young woodland in land above the quarry, and this is becoming well used by the bird population. Breeding numbers of Turtle Dove in this woodland have risen from one to five pairs over the last ten years.

On-site is an Environmental Education Study Centre, which contains a number of different exhibitions, including a large geological collection. Fossils, rocks and minerals from the Mesozoic, Cainozoic, and Pleistocene are on display, with the collections containing a number of unusual items, including a fine specimen of a tooth palette from the Cretaceous shark Ptychodus polygyrus.

Thanet Observatory is situated in the centre of the nature reserve. It houses a 12" f5.89 reflecting telescope.

Reproduced with kind permission of the Monkton Nature Reserve, for full details please visit their excellent site at www.mnr.manston.net.

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