Where the poppies still grow

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow” an inspirational line from an inspirational poem by John Mc Crae, I often corrupt the words to ‘in farmers fields the poppies grow’ as at this time of the year the corn poppy starts to flower its ephemeral bloom.

Just as the blazing yellow of the oilseed rape dies away and the first heads appear on the corn the first poppies push through to bring what can sometime be the most striking blaze of colour the countryside will ever see. All too often however this and many other wild flowers are just token gestures where we allow them to flower as we strive still for uniformity and higher production.



Where margins around fields are left and hedgerows are not flailed this simple and easily achieved action makes a massive difference to the overall wealth of biodiversity in any area, from insects to wild flowers to the increased survival of young birds and mammals. It gives us a hint of what we have lost in these post world war years of production, production, production.



To me the poppy is more than a weed its brief and fragile appearance in the fields and hedgerows of summer remind me of days when fields and hedges were not treated like factory floors, well at least until that too reached my childhood haunts and the hedges were grubbed out and livestock and rotation was replaced by year on year cereal production and a 'Business Park'.



I found a place the other day where I could walk through tall grasses and flick the poppies with my fingers, cow parsley's swayed and skylarks sang. I sat in my car and was treated to a great feast of wildlife, three hares chased themselves around oblivious to my presence, literally crashing into the parked wheels of my vehicle and all around the insects danced about the mayflowers bloom and martins dashed to make the feast. It was a magnificent place as the smells of damp grass triggered childhood memories and more evocative than ever a curlew rose from damp meadows, was I in heaven? Well not quite I was actually in Cramlington!



A magical carpet of poppies

 Am I looking through rose coloured glasses, are my memories clouded by an environmental doctrine, ‘it was never like this when I was lad’ many say. Well I'm not to sure anymore, near my home the poppies are filling the fields of ripening rape and are bursting with the song of nesting sedge warblers, over head, larks sing and swifts scream and the hedges are full of life. To be fair these fields all have wide margins, are punctuated by decent hedgerows and a sympathetically managed country park with lots of mixed habitats within and around.



Nearby though the same crops grow mile on mile but with no margins and and are surrounded by gappy, flailed hedges, it’s like a different world populated by nothing but crows, pigeons and pheasants. This is what some people call our ‘managed’ landscape and it is what many people except as the norm not realising what should be there. Well it’s not for me, nor should it be for most, especially when there are choices and alternatives out there.

Looks awfully familiar

As the hare’s finished there impromptu display of lust and vigour I moved off down the lane where a roe deer stood in the shade of a huge sign, proudly proclaiming ‘Land for Development’ coming to a field near you. Like the poppy it will all be gone in a flash under another underused, over priced and more importantly un-needed office development or housing project, is it a price we can hardly afford to pay both economically and environmentally?

Just type 'new business park' into Google, there are 430 million entries!!! Look through the windows of many of these developments dotted around, not just the region but the whole country, they are empty!! Dont let the 'lights on' fool you there is someone home.

For me now while the poppies still grow I will be well... watching the poppies grow.