Flight Area

Enjoy the unique pleasure of watching hundreds of the world's most spectacular and colourful butterflies flying all around. You can see them feeding and flying in a wonderful tropical environment.

 Our landscaped tropical greenhouse is the largest tropical butterfly display in the UK! Throughout the year we have over 250 different species of tropical butterfly form 20 different countries. At one time we have over 1,500 free flying individual butterflies (sometimes it’s a few more, sometimes a few less).

 Some of the butterflies we breed here and the rest we import from the tropics. All of the places we buy butterflies form are either Conservation projects or Village projects, where butterfly breeding is the main source of income for most of the villagers. These breeding operations have been set up to enable communities to earn a living without causing any damage to the environment and wildlife around them. So not only is it good from a conservation point of view, it allows families all over the tropics a sustainable income and helps to preserve the Rainforest whilst educating our visitors.

We don't just have butterflies in the flight area! There are also a huge selection of tropical plants, not just to make it look lovely but to feed the butterflies. Lantana is one of the most important nectar plants we have in the butterfly farm with its heads of tightly packed blossoms rich in sugary nectar. In Asia where Lantana comes form it is considered a weed!

Keep your eyes peeled for our Iguana. He is a green Iguana from South America, he was donated to ous about 5 years ago after becoming to big to be a pet. He likes to hide up high in the trees and on top of the heater where he can keep an eye on things and warm his tummy.

There are quite a few birds in the flight area, they have all been chosen because none of them are insectivorous (feed in insects). We have Tom the Amazon parrot, three Indian Ring necks, Dr Evil the Senegal parrot,four very mischievous Cockatiels form Australia and some Chinese painted quail that walk around on the floor but to name a few.