We'll be looking out for the heathland birds and butterflies of the New Forest with Keith Lea, Consultant in woodland management and Vice Chair of Salisbury Natural History Society.

No dogs. Start time at Hale Purlieu 10am. Anticipated end time: 1pm

A mid summer walk in search of heathland butterflies, notably Grayling and Silver Studded Blue, heathland & woodland birds and heathland/bog flora. A moderate 3 mile circular walk within this beautiful part of the New Forest National Park.

Meet at the Nadder Centre for 9 am departure or meet at the National Trust Car   Park, Lady's Mile Rd, Hale Purlieu, SP6 2QZ for 10am start  What3words:///hardback.dices.cactus

Distance, Difficulty and Footwear - Please dress accordingly to the weather and bring water & snacks. Mostly flat walking but uneven.

If you would like to join us please contact us and let us know if you will be meeting us at Nadder Centre to car share or at the starting location.

On Wednesday 8th July we are having a farm walk. Led by Keith Lea, Keith is a consultant in woodland management and Vice Chair of Salisbury Natural History Society. 

A summer evening farm walk exploring different habitats (River Sem, woodland, ponds, hedgerow and farmland) at Priors Farm where nature conservation is a high priority. No dogs. Searching for birds, dragonflies & damselflies, butterflies and general flora to be found here.

​If you would like to join us please contact us and let us know if you will be meeting us at Nadder Centre to car share or at the starting location.

​Meet at the Nadder Centre for 5.45pm departure or meet at the farm for a 6pm start. Priors Farm, Tokes Lane (East Knoyle) SP79BP. What3words: ///workroom.bedrooms.sofas
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The expected end time is 8.30pm.

​We will be walking out onto Collard Hill where, as well as other summer butterflies and flowers we will hope to see the fabulous Large Blue butterfly which has been successfully reintroduced to this site.

Please contact us if you'd like to join the trip and tell us whether you'll meet us at at the site or at the Nadder Centre to car-share. No dogs.

Meet at the Nadder Centre for 10:30am departure or meet at 11.30am at the Ivythorn Hill National Trust Car Park south of Street, Somerset. OS:ST488340. What3words: ///timed.deck.dream

Distance, Difficulty and Footwear - We will be walking 3 or 4 km at a very gentle pace. Collard Hill is steep and the ground uneven so to explore it fully you will need to be prepared for and able to handle those slopes. Stout walking shoes and possibly a walking stick are recommended.  Bring a packed lunch and refreshments.

Anticipated end time on site: 2:30pm. Return to Nadder Centre by 3:30pm.

Let us know if you'd like to join us a field trip led by Caroline Longley, Conservation and Wildlife Officer of the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust.

The reserve covers 71 hectares where the WWT are managing the transition of half of the land from prior agricultural usage to chalk grassland. Five butterfly banks have been made to encourage chalk-loving breeding pairs and the location is rich with birds and wild flowers.

Further information about the trip can be found in the Field Trips Details document.

We have a variety of locations for our Field Trips this summer with mostly local sites and a couple further afield near Street and the New Forest. Please view the listing and mark them in your diary. There is also a link to a document with details about where to meet, what to bring etc on the Field Trips page.

If you know which trips you want to go on, please email us and we'll add you to the lists.
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Field Trips are free for members and guests can join them for £4 each, unless we publish that there is a restriction on numbers for a particular trip. At the moment we know that there is a limit of 10 Tisbury & District Natural History Society spaces for our joint field trip with the Salisbury NHS, on Tues 19 May for the Duke of Burgundy hunt.

We encourage car sharing wherever possible, to reduce the environmental footprint and certainly some locations have small parking areas so it makes sense to band together.

Please view the details of each field trip by clicking the link to the document that's been loaded onto the Field Trips page. We may need to update this document during the summer, but we'll always notify you here in the Blog or by email.

Please make a note that we have cancelled the Fernhill Farm trip which had been listed for 3rd June and there is now an updated programme for the Society accessible on the Field Trips page. As Peter mentioned at our last talk, Fernhill do run their own events from time to time and perhaps you may wish to attend one of those in the future. 

Just a note to say that the Field Trips now appear on the Field Trips page as a list. We're finalising the details of times and meeting points so bear with us until then. It should give you an idea of which ones you want to pencil in your diaries!

The programme for 2026 is now available for viewing!

Thanks to our hardworking volunteer committee for preparing this.

Download a PDF here. 

About 20 members were met by Jonathan Thompson and Matt Somerville and ushered into the classroom, where Jon gave us a brief overview of the nature reserve.

After buying the 30 acres of newly-planted deciduous plantation, Jon has been working hard to increase the diversity of habitats with small-scale re-wilding. Jonathan explained that, at Underhill, this means mimicking the effects of the large native animals currently missing from the local environment, such as wild boar, beaver and wild cattle. For example, ring barking trees to create dead-wood habitats and opening the woodland, to let light penetrate the forest floor.

We then split into two groups; one led by Matt and the other by Jonathan, before a half-time change over. Matt started by showing us the inner workings of a natural beehive, teaching us about Propolis, which is like a bee glue, with amazing qualities, which bees use to fill holes with and prevent pests taking over. Matt makes something like a hundred natural hives each year, in two styles: Rocket and Log types. We walked onto the reserve to look at several of the log hives, one of which was humming with bees. Wild honeybees have recently been classified as endangered, and it was terrific to have a deep dive into their life and ecology by a real expert.

Jonathan took his group to see newly dug ponds and scrapes which had just started re-filling with water after the summer’s drought. Holding water year-round, whatever the rainfall is, the lake has a large population of amphibians and lots of other wildlife, Jonathan has even seen otters. Near the lake is an example of ‘conservation hedge-laying’, a really thick, wide and tall hedge, where each stem has been cut half-way through at the base and pushed over to forty-five degrees. One of Jonathan’s students has surveyed the invertebrate community in this one hedge and has written a paper on it. Also, a book has been written about it, by a local author!
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Finally, Jonathan took us down to a small stream where the students of the John Muir award scheme made dams, to simulate the activities of beavers. These dams hold up the water, creating pools, which clean the sediment and enable a new community of wildlife to exist.

​Peter Shallcross