A "mini meadow" left to grow wild in Hull city centre, on Land Registry land near St Stephen's Shopping Centre, has attracted ten species of butterfly, according to the wildlife group Hull Butterfly City. Volunteer Sean Clough said the presence of breeding small skipper butterflies is particularly notable, calling it "rare for a city", as the project shows how small changes to urban land management can support biodiversity even amid office blocks and retail development.

The meadow was created in 2023 to encourage planting that provides food for caterpillars, not just flowers for pollinating adults. Clough explained that small skippers need grass left uncut year-round, since their caterpillars overwinter inside a grass sheath, and that most butterfly species are highly specific about their caterpillars' food plants. The area has also drawn dragonflies and grasshoppers, and Land Registry sustainability head Sarah Duell said staff, initially wary the unmown patches would look untidy, have come to love seeing the wildlife it has brought to the office grounds.