A few days ago went along to have a look at Wilford Fields (behind ROKO on Wilford Lane), it`s the big green “hillock” surrounded by Housing. And it was a pleasant oasis, and dog walkers aside, you would hardly know you were in an urban area. A good basic wildlife site, I identified some 30 species of wildflower during a walk round, across and generally all over.
Not a bad haul nothing really out of the normal, but a good number of the usual suspects. And this is important because it means that the insects that exploit the usual suspects (food, eggs etc) are also likely to be around. If the foodplant is common, then it is likely so is the predator.
And this brings me to the subject of grasses – I reckon there were at least 10 species of grass on site and grass is the principal component of grassland (go figure !). Consequently you will find an awful lot of insects use grass (or more likely specific species as both a foodplant and an egglaying plant – it makes sense, exploit the most common foodstuffs. You only have to look at British moths to realize that many of them do exactly that.
So in summary a good, useful wildlife site.
PS I found White Campion and Goatsbeard neither of which are common in these parts, I think.