5 Shoveler and 4 Teal were amongst the wildfowl.
Dragonflies included 2 Migrant Hawkers and 1 Willow Emerald (C. Parkin).
The origins etc of Carlton Marsh - Bird Ringing continued
Bird ringing began here in the autumn of 1975 by Philip Bright Wordsworth, after Keith and I discovered a large Meadow Pipit and Corn Bunting roost, a meadow roost, the like we have not witnessed since. However, this left Phil eager to return in in the summer of 1976 and ringing activity continued with Phil training Keith and I. Phil described the ringing ride he made as the best single net site he had ever worked.
In March 1977 I was fortunate to be in the right place to see a male Dartford Warbler climbing through the Bulrushes. I ran to Cudworth to a red telephone box to inform Phil, who came the following morning and ringed it. At the next BBSG meeting, it was described by Mike Pysden as the ‘The bird of the century’. It had never been recorded in Yorkshire before.
After Keith and I made the discovery of a Reed Bunting and Corn Bunting roost at Monckton (now part of Rabbit Ings) Keith, Phil, Peter Senior and I began a winter campaign in 1977 to catch as many as we could as they came in at dusk. Over the next 7 winters more than 600 Reed Buntings, 52 Corn Buntings, Pied Wagtail and Yellow Buntings were ringed until the reed beds flooded preventing further trapping in 1984/85. It was hard though as we had to tramp the steel poles from my home in Cudworth with all the ringing equipment. During that time there were just 2 recoveries of Reed Bunting, one from York and one from Lancashire. There were no Corn Bunting recoveries. Soon after this the population of Corn Bunting crashed due to intensive farming so that none bred at Carlton Marsh after 1986.
I helped train Dave Smith in 1984 and he became a dedicated part of the team until he retired from ringing in 2013. He caught a splendid Icterine Warbler near the hide in September 1988, the first for South Yorkshire.
Since then, I have ringed an average of 185 birds a year just to keep it going. A combined total of more than 24,000 birds have been ringed by us all since 1975 with birds recovered in several countries in Europe and Africa.
On 15th November 2017, I met Vivien Hartwell and Paul Bellamy, from the RSPB, with a view to implementing the ‘Back from the Brink’ Willow Tit project.
Willow Tit is a sedentary species that has disappeared from many parts of the country over recent years. We often had up to 4 pairs. This scheme hoped to find out what their requirements were and to create wet woodland habitat along wildlife friendly corridors to save them from further decline.
What followed, on the 28th of November, at Carlton Marsh, was a ringing session to try and catch Willow Tits to colour-ring them. We managed to catch and colour-ring 3 that day, and 2 more near the wader scrape on 6thDecember. Some were fitted with a radio transmitter, which had a life span of around two weeks. It was Vivien’s job to track them with her H shaped aerial. The scheme was also being run at RSPB Old Moor by Dave Waddington and Worsbrough Reservoir by Geoff Carr. All the colour-ringed birds at Carlton Marsh were fitted with a red plastic ring above the BTO metal ring on the right leg, denoting our site. Other colours were used on their left legs. Yorkshire Wildlife Trust put up many suitable logs and nest boxes at all three sites.
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