Bird's-foot Trefoil

Bird's-foot Trefoil

Buy greater birds foot trefoil plants

Bird's-foot Trefoil is the main foodplant of the attractive red and black, day-flying, SIX-SPOT BURNET MOTH.
It is also a favourite of caterpillars of the COMMON BLUE butterfly.

Caterpillars of the GREEN HAIRSTREAK and the migratory CLOUDED YELLOW butterflies also feast on its leaves.

Birds-foot Trefoil is easily choked out by agricultural grasses, so mainly grows in dunes and rough ground round the coast, and on chalk and limestone downs, and other areas that are not too overgrown. Keep the grass in check and you can grow it almost anywhere.

Including butterflies with a more limited geographical range that you might also be able to attract if you live in the same part  of the country, it is also a major foodplant of caterpillars of the:

• WOOD WHITE (Ireland & Southern England)
• DINGY SKIPPER (England, mainly coastal in Wales and Scotland, scattered Ireland)
• SILVER-STUDDED BLUE (rare outside southern English heathlands)

As an added bonus, the pretty, yellow, pea-like flowers of Bird's-foot Trefoil are a source of nectar for most adult butterflies. Like clover and other legumes it enriches the soil with nitrogen that it extracts from the air with the help of symbiotic micro-organisms. It's perennial, attractive, easy to grow from seed and multi-functional, so why wait!

INCREASE BIODIVERSITY BY GROWING BIRD'S-FOOT TREFOIL TO SUPPORT THE BUTTERFLIES BELOW

COMMON BLUE
Polyommatus icarus

​Leaves of Bird's-foot trefoil are the main foodplant of caterpillars of the Common Blue.
It is also eaten by the rare Silver-studded Blue now restricted to a few locations in England and Wales

DINGY SKIPPER
​Erynnis tages

Found mainly in warm sites in England and Wales, it is a springtime butterfly. The main foodplant on which the females lay their eggs is Birds-foot Trefoil, although on warm downs they may go for Kidney Vetch. The caterpillar hibernates over winter in vetch leaves that it pulls over itself and fastens together with silk.

GREEN HAIRSTREAK
Callophrys rubi

Here we have an example of a butterfly that will lay its eggs on Bird's-foot Trefoil but is not dependent on it. In fact its range of potential foodplants is much wider than that of most caterpillars. Rock Rose is also on the menu along with the leaves of dogwood leaves, brambles, gorse, broom and bilberry.

The green of the underwings of the Green Hairstreak can readily be seen as it rests with its wings up; the upper wings being brown. It is the only truly green native butterfly. In others the illusion of green is created by adjacent black and yellow markings.

Its name is Greek for 'beautiful eyebrow' referring to the appearance of the eyes.

The males tend to be quite tame and can easily be persuaded to walk onto your hands.

At the end of the season the caterpillar leaves its foodplant and goes off in search of an ants' nest where it becomes a chrysalis. It is the species in which the remarkable association of certain butterflies (including several blues) with ants was first discovered.

The chrysalis makes a noise audible to the human ear as well as to ants, It produces a sweet secretion for the ants, and remains protected in their nest during the winter.

So in these species we can add ants' nests to the usual list of requirements at different stages of the life cycle.

SIX-SPOT BURNET MOTH
Zygaena filipendulae

 Bird's-foot Trefoil is the main foodplant of caterpillars of this striking red and black day-flying moth. From it they obtain not only food but chemicals which make them distasteful to birds, even after they stop eating leaves and become nectar-drinking moths.

CLOUDED YELLOW
Colias croceus

 Bird's-foot Trefoil, along with Clover and Lucerne, are the main foodplants of  the caterpillars of the Clouded Yellow.