During that time, the group of nature-inclined youth led by Brewster met at the latter's home, and these meetings would eventually evolve into the Nuttall Ornithological Club (officially in 1873), of which Batchelder became a member in 1877.
He pursued a brief career in his original vocation upon his return in 1884, which only served to shake his frail health, a situation that was not helped by his subsequent travel to Europe, which lasted until 1887.
The family moved twice before settling at Peterborough, New Hampshire, on a farm with dilapidated lands that Batchelder used to make horticultural experiments, commenting: "there is no danger of my undertakings reaching such complete fruition that I shall be left with idle hands at the end."
In fact, the Nuttall members were not very happy with how the Club was "rather unwillingly compelled" to transfer control of its Bulletin, which was to become The Auk, to the AOU.
Although ornithology was his main interest, he also worked in botany and zoology, taking notes on, amongst other things, the activities of the hedgehogs living under his barn.
He was a founding member of the New England Zoological Club in 1899, of which he published the proceedings, which Thomas Barbour characterized as "a modest but enduring monument".
Wendell Taber concluded his obituary with an account of his last encounter with the man:[3] As I rose to leave one afternoon shortly before his death, his eyes grew suddenly large and clear with an undescribable [sic] mischievous sparkle.
In a strong, ringing voice, utterly unlike his conversational intonations of the previous half hour, he called, "Glad to have known you."