Introduction:
I grew up on a small dairy farm in rural New Zealand, between the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The marine and terrestrial natural world has always played an important part in my life. Since living in the UK, my awareness of the need to protect, conserve, restore and indeed help our squeezed and threatened native fauna and flora, has grown more urgent.
I felt the best way for me to “do something” was to actually “do something.” To this end, in 2014, we bought 16 acres of undulating clay land on the Wiltshire / Dorset border. There was a small stream, an area of marshy sedge, some beautiful oaks, an open barn, and the recent mixed plantings of ash, lime, oak and field maple - from a forestry grant scheme. We had two aims. The first was to nurture the land to become rich in biodiversity, where flora and fauna could thrive and survive. The second was to provide a place for young (and not so young) people to learn about nature. The first two things we did was create a lake below the sedge marsh and fix up the barn so we could use it for educational purposes - which is where I now teach the John Muir Conservation Award. We called the land Underhill Wood Nature Reserve. In 2020 we were lucky to have the opportunity to add six adjoining acres.
Because Underhill is connected to a large ancient wood and field system, it is able to punch above its weight for its size. The lake has exponentially increased the levels biodiversity, providing habitat, food & a water-source for resident mallard ducks, moorhens, dabchicks, amphibians, a variety of mammals, grass snakes, dragonflies, kingfishers, herons, mandarin ducks, hobbies and bats.
Our resident pair of barn owls are the beneficiaries of careful meadow management for field vole populations. They are watched and treasured by all our neighbours, and have successfully reared owlets each year. It is rewarding to see rarer species thriving: adders, the astonishing water shrew, and the impossibly endearing dormice.
At Underhill I have focused on developing a mosaic landscape to favour a range of species, however unlike larger estates like Knepp in Sussex who use proxy native horses, deer, cattle, pigs, I have to take the place of large ungulates to replicate their beneficial grazing patterns. Then it is a matter of wait and see. Things arrive, part of the phenomena is known as ecological memory. In the late summer of 2020, I was treated to a dazzling show of male glowworms in numbers I have not seen here before. I was also thrilled to see my first goshawk.
I am very grateful to all the naturalists, ecologists, and volunteers who have helped Underhill Wood become the inspiration and joy that it is.
In January 2021, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a 30 minute program about Underhill Wood Nature Reserve. It gives a decent account of what we do and what we achieve.
Click on this link to listen to the program….
Updated December 2021 - Jonathan Thomson