Butterfly Farm

Having received a postcard from Katie, who was away last week at my mum and dad's, from their local butterfly farm, Ben and I decided to go the huge 5 miles down the road to our local butterfly farm! Apart from the sea marshes and various walks, which the kids are very quickly tiring of, this is our one and only really local attraction (although there is a Maize Maze open along the same road at the moment which we'll try and get to in the not too distant future), and until little legs get a lot stronger, we'll still need the car to reach it! Luckily for us, we had the car last week. Unlucky for P, the reason for this was because he sprained his ankle on one of "those" walks Monday evening and spent most of the week with his foot propped up sporting a fetching a lovely granny style support sock around the offending hurting spot!

So, lovely day at the farm. Glorious weather as well, so took a picnic. Started off with the birds of prey flying display where a buzzard and an owl (Indian I think, but probably wrong) went swooping over heads so close you could feel the breeze. And a floor display by their eldest resident, a jet black vulture, with lots of character, rounded off this part of the day. After our picnic and a very short play in the adventure playground (Ben desperately missed Katie last week), we did a round of crazy golf before heading off to see the various animals which included these darling racoons. Must admit I'm not a lover of seeing caged animals and although the four racoons had a large and well kitted out enclosure, it broke my heart to see them reaching through the bars when a passer by decided to throw some cherry tomatoes in for them. It left them climbing the bars and scrabbling on the floor for more tit-bits - a very sorry site.

Butterflies were the hit of the day. It's a tropical butterfly enclosure and very beautifully done with finches, quails and doves competing with the most colourful (and transparent) butterflies I've ever seen. Ponds of fish and terrapins, iguanas, scorpians, terrantulas and cockroaches (these last ones were secured inside glass tanks, don't worry) added to the experience. The best for Ben were the live ants that travelled along long ropes carrying leaves to it's huge colony. What hard work for such little creatures.

Typical, I took a photo of a butterfly not listed in the guide!


This reminded me of our escapades last year when trying to successfuly rear cabbage whites - lovely sugar solution.