Creating a Nature Reserve: Parson’s Carr

We are expanding homes for nature from our Potteric Carr reserve outwards, extending a green oasis into the industrial heartland of Doncaster and a brand new nature reserve.

Our reserves officer Sophie Pinder explains how to visit, what we're doing to increase homes for lapwing, marsh harrier, wading birds and gemlike butterflies and dragonflies, and why keeping your dog on a lead will help to protect them...

A new reserve in an unusual location

Potteric Carr, our large wetland reserve in Doncaster is bursting with wildlife and rich habitat. Surrounded by industrial estates, motorways, new housing estates and most recently the iPort, a six million square foot logistics park, we are still helping nature to expand further.

In fact, the green corridors of Doncaster have just got larger with the addition of a new and nearby nature reserve - Parson’s Carr. Covering 104 hectares, the land to the west of the iPort is being transformed into a mixture of wetland, grassland and woodland mosaic to provide more homes for more wildlife. It's the perfect place to spot avocets and marsh harriers. Visitors can enjoy 2.5 miles of paths winding their way through this brand-new nature reserve, and spotting some of our friendly conservation cattle hard at work.

To protect our conservation grazing animals, we are ask visitors to please make sure dogs are kept on leads at all times for the safety of our animals. The lakes have been reclaimed for wildlife and fishing is also prohibited.

Highland cattle at Parson's Carr — Parson's Carr - Highland cattle - (C) Katie Baker

Managed for wildlife

Surprisingly, the iPort is the ideal location for a new nature reserve because of the green corridor opportunity it offers; the addition of Parson’s Carr will create a large extension to the south of Potteric Carr, which complements Carr Lodge nature reserve to the west and Manor Farm nature reserve to the east.

Parson’s Carr was originally created as part of the iPort development, with the drainage ditches diverted and the site flooded in 2017 to transform the previously arable landscape. Yorkshire Wildlife Trust officially took on ownership and management of the site in 2023.

There has already been a good deal of work on-site due to funding through various grants, including Countryside Stewardship, LNER Community Investment Fund and FCC Communities Foundation. The most obvious change visitors will see is the erection of stock fencing across the site. This is required to enable our hardy native breed cattle to graze, which will create variation in vegetation height and open up areas of bare ground, giving a greater variety of wildflowers the opportunity to seed and germinate.

Wet grassland habitat at Parson's Carr — Parson's Carr - Wet grassland habitat - (C) Sophie Pinder

Wet grassland habitat - good for snipe!

The southern end of the reserve gets progressively drier from a large area of wet grassland just after the lakes. This ex-arable grassland is limestone-rich, an increasingly scarce habitat in Yorkshire, and so provides a fantastic opportunity to create valuable habitat for wildflowers and insects which only grow on this type of 'calcareous grassland'.

In addition to the fencing, some other changes have been more colourful. Alongside the bridleway there is a thin strip of land where we have stripped back the soil and sown a wildflower mix as a cover crop – an area full of flowers which go to seed in the autumn and provide a food source for small birds like goldfinches. This is a fairly good practice on arable margins to keep local bird populations healthy, and also means we can positively manage even the smallest areas on Parson’s Carr, where other options aren’t possible.

Cover crop area at Parson's Carr — Parson's Carr - Cover crop area - (C) Sophie Pinder

Turtle doves

In the long term, we hope to see breeding success of some ground nesting birds around the lakes and grasslands, most likely skylark, snipe, lapwing and oystercatcher. The grasslands, through grazing management, should become abundant with wildflowers in the spring and summer months, with hopefully some species such as devil’s-bit scabious and orchids.

Around the grasslands where dense scrub is retained, there is potential for the return of the UK’s fastest declining bird, the turtle dove, which has bred in the area within the last ten years. By improving the quality of the grassland and retaining adjacent scrub and wet features, it is possible that these birds could breed again.