Poppies and Other Wildflowers (July 2020)

One of the local fields was temporarily taken over by a combination of poppies and mayweed during July. This is unusual as this field is normally very active with crops most years. This led me to wonder whether the virus hiatus had extended to farming activities as well as....just about everything else!

By the first week in August, however, the field had been reset and the ‘weeds’ were ploughed into the ground. Before that happened I manage to take some images for the record although it was a little difficult to get a good angle from the footpath that runs only on one side of the the field. 

These were some of the results, starting with the poppies:

I then moved on to the mayweed with their characteristic 'shuttlecock' look:

I also came across a nice patch of harebells during July...a lovely delicate flower....great for photography, although the stooping and getting down to ground level gets harder each year!

Field scabious and cranesbill bloom a little higher off the ground and are easier to photograph. The red dotted insect on the scabious is a burnet moth - they seem to particularly enjoy field scabious and stay very still, unbothered by any activity around them. Perhaps their confidence is drawn from their deadly ability to produce hydrogen cyanide which makes them taste bad and in large quantities can kill a predator...the red dots are a warning!