Butterfly and Wildlife Park

The Butterfly and Wildlife Park near Long Sutton in Lincolnshire offers a number of attractions to visitors including an animal centre, reptiles, ant room, racoon enclosure, adventure playground and birds of prey centre.

Our main point of interest though, is the Tropical House. This is home to several hundred butterflies from around the world. There didn't seem to be actual numbers printed anywhere on generally available literature as to how many butterflies or how many species were around. Nevertheless, there are plenty of butterflies to see. The website claims the Tropical House is one of the largest in the UK. It's certainly a good size and I spent a long time looking around.

In common with a number of other butterfly houses, there a number of birds flying around as well, some of which were very attractive as seen here. In the butterfly house you'll also find the ant room which is great fun. From each corner in the room, there are thousands of leaf-cutting ants cutting up leaves and then transporting them across ropes, literally just above your head (and not behind glass!) to a huge glass tank in the centre of the room. Amazing sight!

The butterfly hatching cabinet was available to see, although it was quite confined and restricting for those butterflies that had fully developed wings. They were just bashing their wings around. It would have been better if they'd been allowed direct access to the rest of the house instaed of 'waiting' for a member of staff to release them.

That aside, the house seemed alive with butterflies and there were lots of different species to observe. I also found a huge Atlas Moth hanging at head level which was a treat. Many people missed it!

There were a few tropical butterflies I hadn't seen before and I spent quite a time trying to catch some of these on camera, as typically, they were the ones that didn't seem to need much rest!

The enviroment was great, plenty of space to explore, had large cages of reptiles in various corners and the usual pond of fish. The latter seems almost compulsory, I'm not sure why - anything to do with added humidity?

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the visit. The other attractions on the site easily make this a day trip and should keep other members of the family amused and interested. The Birds of Prey Centre has a flying display in which you'll encounter magnificent birds up-close. This is well worth watching. I also had the opportunity to hold a Bengal Eagle Owl afterwards too!