Lots of admiration...and envy!

I spent a lovely morning at Butterfly World near St. Albans, looking at how the wildflower meadows and banks are coming on. This is a wonderful visitor attraction for exotic butterflies, leafcutter ants and much more, but I don't think people know enough about what the team there are doing to make the grounds attractive for our native butterflies and other wildlife. Louise, the staff lepidopterist showed me this bank completely covered in Horseshoe Vetch. It puts to shame my efforts at the nature reserve with a scatter of tiny plugs of this vetch, the food plant of Chalkhill Blue butterflies, but at least I'm a bit closer to existing colonies. There was also great carpets of Bird's-foot Trefoil with lots of Common Blues flying, despite the poor weather, and Small Blues have already been spotted around the healthy clumps of Kidney Vetch. If you are at all interested in butterflies you must visit!