It all began back in early spring, with birds competing to find mates, then building nests, laying and incubating eggs, and feeding chicks until they grew strong enough to fledge and fend for themselves.

A successful breeding season is crucial for maintaining healthy numbers of each species – but the whole process is fraught with dangers that mean many attempts end in failure. So how have Potteric Carr’s prospective parents fared?

A year ago, the reserve’s star couple was a pair of black-winged stilts. These elegant waders hold the record for the longest legs – relative to their body size – of any bird in the world. They winter in North Africa and migrate to Europe to breed – but never as far north as Doncaster… until last summer.

There was huge excitement when the pair arrived at Potteric Carr in May 2022, nested on Piper Marsh, and went on to raise four chicks – the first successful breeding attempt by black-winged stilts anywhere in Yorkshire.

Would this summer bring similar success? The early signs were good: a pair of black-winged stilts – quite possibly the same birds – turned up, a couple of weeks earlier than last year, built a nest in almost exactly the same place on Piper Marsh, and laid four eggs.

However, as Springwatch viewers can testify, there are a whole host of predators desperate to plunder nests, and all four eggs were taken before they could hatch. But four black-winged stilt chicks were raised at another South Yorkshire site – Edderthorpe Flash in the Dearne Valley. It’s possible, though by no means certain, that the Potteric Carr pair relocated to Edderthorpe and were ultimately successful after their initial setback. A network for nature - that supports and helps wildlife move around, find a home, feed and raise a family - is so important. 

It’s been a good breeding season for another of Potteric Carr’s rare species: two pairs of bitterns nested successfully. Twenty-five years ago, these elusive and well-camouflaged reedbed dwellers were on the brink of becoming extinct in the UK, but their numbers have boomed, and they’ve now bred at Potteric Carr every year since 2014.

Potteric Carr is home to another species that’s heading alarmingly in the opposite direction. Willow tit numbers have fallen by more than 90% across the country over the past half-century – the worst decline of any resident UK bird. Two pairs bred successfully on the reserve this summer, helping this desperately endangered species to cling on in South Yorkshire.

While it’s tempting to concentrate on the rarest species, the breeding season is vital for much commoner birds too. As pressures on the countryside grow, birds need places like Potteric Carr – with its mosaic of different habitats – to help them thrive and reproduce.

The reedbeds, ponds and lakes that attract black-winged stilts and bitterns, also provide ideal breeding grounds for a wealth of more familiar species like moorhens – some of which have managed to raise three broods over the course of the summer.

Lapwings – a fairly common sight at Potteric Carr but suffering a worrying drop in numbers across the UK – also seem to have had a good breeding season. It’s been a similar success story for mute swans and ducks like mallard, gadwall, tufted and pochard.

Hidden in the reserve’s woodlands, nests have provided shelter for a host of chicks from different species, including great, blue, coal and long-tailed tits, robins, wrens, song thrushes, willow warblers and bullfinches. They appear to have been helped by the good weather between April and June.

Altogether, 65 species of bird bred at Potteric Carr in 2023 – including shelduck, shoveler, kingfisher and linnet, which all drew a blank in 2022. On the flip side, cuckoo, woodcock, black‐headed gull, lesser black‐backed gull, marsh harrier, tawny owl, mistle thrush and spotted flycatcher all bred last year but not in 2023.

So, how do we know so much about birds’ breeding successes and failures at Potteric Carr? It’s all down to the painstaking work of its staff and volunteers, who spend countless hours observing and listening out for wildlife and then recording what they see and hear.

As the days grow shorter, new challenges lie ahead for the young birds that have just fledged at Potteric Carr. Some, like common terns and warblers, are facing long migrations to Africa or warmer parts of Europe. Others are getting ready to weather the colder, shorter days of a South Yorkshire winter.