Do singing skylarks eat the sky? So many rise from this prairie of wheat that I wonder what fills their little bellies. Not the green grass of the emerging crop, for my jaded and jade-filled eyes see only sterility in the phalanx of leaves, and no corn. This one field, covering two, maybe three, football pitches in area, will eventually give us our daily bread, but it offers not a crumb to the larks.
The ground by my feet offers a band of hope, the slimmest of flower borders, never more than half a metre wide, that has escaped the sprayer’s boom. Banked up against the taller wheat, it blooms discreetly with colour and the busyness of insects.
A bumblebee tastes the pearls of white deadnettle, while another, just woken, handwashes its tousled tawny midriff. A solitary wasp is flumped down over the candelabra of shepherd’s purse. The stem beneath resembles a fingerpost, with seedpod purses pointing to all points of the compass. A seven-spotted ladybird lumbers on bare soil under speedwell; the tiniest flower, yet so striking in its brilliance it quickens the pulse. I crouch down to peer into its sunny heart and marvel at purple veining on lilac petals.
Spurge has a name that trips off the tongue like lumpy porridge. This plant has the oddest structure. I think of it as a miniature saucer tree, with its overlapping bracts creating the impression of crockery. Spurge lightens in colour towards the top of the plant, as if lit up in lime. One of the euphorbia family, I’d say its luminous crown inspires euphoria.
Fumitory gives a pink flush to much of the border. If only it were taller and louder, instead of a small and bashful scrambler. Its crinkly leaves could be curly kale for pixies, the spikes of numerous flowers dipped in burgundy ink.
And here, too, all around is unloved groundsel, the go-for garden weed, felled by rake or hoe. In this protected place groundsel will develop unchecked to fill the bank with seed, fuelling the skylark summer, opening their throats into full-bellied song.
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