Weedy arable fields

Many autumn-sown crops were growing so poorly and patchily after the wet winter and cold spring that they were ploughed up and replanted.  On a Standish farm, only one of several oil-seed rape fields was considered worth keeping.  Even so, it has produced flush after flush of weeds.  I’m sorry for the farmer, but it has been fabulous for wildlife – full of finches feeding on the weed seeds and abundant  insects for swallows and swifts.  Currently it is over-topped by 6ft high spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare), and so is alive with butterflies and bees.

Spear Thistle in Oil-seed Rape
Spear Thistle in Oil-seed Rape
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