Carlton Marsh

This morning's highlights were; Bittern hidden among the reeds in the scrape. Unfortunately it is only being found with a heat sensing scope at the moment, but we know it has been here since at least the 4th of September (Dave Standish).

2 Shoveler, Grey Wagtail, 3 Cetti's warblers sang, and 2 Water Rails called.

A Redpoll was flitting around with a few Siskins, 2 Goldcrests called along with 4 Chiffchaffs, a fifth bird sang, 

Several Jays were busy caching acorns and a Green Woodpecker called from the western Meadow (CG).

Butterflies included 5 Small Copper, 2 Red Admiral, 2 Common Blue, 5 Speckled Wood and 3 Small White (Chris Parkin).

2 Willow Emeralds and 5 Migrant Hawkers were on the wing along with 2 male Vapourer moths,

A Red Kite flew over Keith Bannister's home in upper Cudworth at 09.30hrs.

As we move into a relatively quiet period of the autumn, I thought it would be an opportune time to reflect and inform visitors and the wider public, who may not know the origin of the reserve and how the recording system evolved.

After taking up bird watching as a hobby at Carlton Swamps in 1971, I met Keith Bannister a couple of years later. We soon realised that what few duck there was on the site was being shot at by some local landowners. In the September of 1975 all hell broke loose when an estimated 10,000 roosting Swallows took to the air during salvos of gunshots. It was this incident that influenced Keith and I to try and stop the shooting by determining who owned the land, and find out if it was legal.

It took a while, but we did discover that the majority of the site was owned by Barnsley Council. By this time, we had met other interested Barnsley birders that included Philip B. Wordsworth and Eric M. Bennet. Philip was Chairman of Barnsley Bird Study Group and Eric was employed by BMBC as a landscape architect.

Eric, Keith and myself were invited to a meeting with Dennis Roberts, the Amenities officer in Barnsley Council, for talks about the site. I presented Mr. Roberts with written evidence of the mammals, birds and butterflies we had recorded there. Then he asked us what we would like to call the site if it was afforded protection. I told him that I had been recording the wildlife there since 1972 under the colloquial name of Carlton Swamps, but I felt that Carlton Marsh would be a more suitable name, even though most of the site is in the boundary of Cudworth. Many wetland sites across the borough had been drained, so we asked him if he could make the site a nature reserve to protect it from future development and shooting pressures etc.

To our delight, after putting forward our proposals to a full council meeting in December 1976, Mr. Roberts came back to us to say that Carlton Marsh would become a Local Nature Reserve.

To be Continued