Postcard from the poppy field

There are very few sights which make me genuinely gasp with astonishment, but this was one of them.  When driving through Worcestershire you pass plenty of perfectly lovely views - as green and pleasant as you could wish for.  But red is not a common colour in the English countryside, and it's the first time I've seen an entire field washed red as if by an Impressionist's watercolours.

I had a tip off it was there and managed to visit while the poppies were at their peak, on a quiet day and in glorious sunshine.  A warm breeze made the glossy, tissue paper-thin, pleated petals bend and flip so they seemed alive.  Bees were trying to find a foothold on the moving flowers to pick up some of the dusty, dark pollen.  The uniformity of colour made the whole thing more astounding.

The field is on a farm recently acquired by the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust who had ploughed the sandy soil, then left it fallow.  Which was obviously the cue for the dormant poppy seeds to burst into life.  They'd normally be considered a weed on arable land.  Here though, they're magnificent and are providing a home for nesting skylarks.  The birds were quiet, but the Severn Valley Railway passes nearby and provided a steam-driven soundtrack of hoots and chugging.

There were plenty of photographers hunched over tripods beetling about the place, but of course poppies aren't just picturesque.  I didn't have a Wizard of Oz moment and fall asleep in the field; but I do wonder what will happen when all that remains is the seedheads.  In Tasmania recently (the world's biggest legal grower of opiates - who knew?), there were reports of wallabies breaking into the fields to gorge on seeds, get high and dash about destroying the place.  I can only hope the skylarks behave better.