Wildflowers Count

This hot June week is thick and muggy. The landscape is fecund with buds, pods and seeds. The pollen count is high. As a volunteer for national conservation charity Plantlife I have a wildflower survey to do. The Wildflowers Count project involves making a simple record, ticking off listed plant species. There is very limited flora in my designated area, but if I beat the county council's contractors to it I can focus on the roadside verge near to home. This skinny kilometre between tarmac highway, cycle path and arable crops is coming into bloom.

On the other side of the village there's a steep chalk embankment above the bypass that's much more bountiful. In January I photographed birds feeding here on sprays of scarlet rose-hips spiky with hoar frost. Now the slopes are ablaze in the sunshine with yellow vetches, pink sainfoin and ox-eye daisy. A colony of bumble bees is frantic for them. Safe from the mowers, it's a vertiginous meadow, heady with nectar and sap, crawling with life.

All photos by Jo Sinclair