When Butterfly World Project in St Albans first opened in 2009 it was a bare patch of earth with no resident butterflies. Fast forward four years and 28 different species have been recorded there, making it one of the best butterfly sites in the district.

Working in conjunction with national charity Butterfly Conservation, the grounds and gardens at Butterfly World were designed by experts to provide a range of habitats which would be attractive to a wide variety of native butterfly species – and the plan is working.

“We’ve got so many because of the mixture of habitats we’ve got here,“ explains resident lepidopterist Louise Hawkins, who has worked at the popular visitor attraction for three years.

“If you go to a nature reserve or woodland area, you only get a few woodland species, but here we’ve got things like chalk grassland so we get a lot of species like the Chalk Hill Blue and the Small Blue, and we get a few more general grassland species as well.“

The butterflies, which have so far found their way to the site, include rare protected species such as Small Blue, Small Heath and White Letter Hairstreak. All have been attracted by the presence of the food plants needed for the survival of their young caterpillars.

“Probably the most important, conservation-wise, is the Small Blue,“ Louise continues, “because they’ve been declining quite a lot – their populations are becoming a lot more isolated and their habitat is being fragmented. A lot of it is to do with construction and farming. So we’re particularly pleased to have them and, apart from Tring, we’re the only place in Hertfordshire that’s got a population, so it’s very exciting.“

Butterfly World is, in fact, home to Hertfordshire’s largest colony of Small Blue, which is the smallest butterfly in the UK and only survives on the plant Kidney Vetch. The species was considered extinct in this country for many years.

Just this month the first Chalk Hill Blue has been recorded in the British Butterfly Garden at the site. This area was planted specifically to attract native species with plants such as Horseshoe Vetch, the caterpillar food plant that it loves.

“All the species that have been recorded at Butterfly World have just naturally found their way here,“ says Louise, “we haven’t released any natural species on the site. We provide them with what we think they would like and then you just let nature take its course.“