Butterfly World

As an early celebration of my birthday next Sunday, my parents spent the day with us, watching Anthony play rugby in the morning and visiting Butterfly World near St Albans, in the afternoon. This South-East Asian Tree Nymph and those shown in the collage extra were much admired in the tropical house. There's an insect house too where I handled a stick insect.  I turned down the cockroach though - yuk! The outdoor part of the reserve is a wonderful space dedicated to wild flowers and native butterflies & insects. The gardens were past their best but evidence of their summer beauty remained in the form of seed heads and were sufficiently impressive to make us decide to return earlier in the season next year.  
Home made battenberg birthday cake and some perfect book pressies (Hostile Habitats and Gillian Price's Alpine Flowers) topped my day off nicely.  Thanks Mum & Dad!