Museum Piece

 In January I photographed scarecrows standing frigid in the fog, failing to scare starving pests off the oil seed rape. The crop was chewed to the quick like bitten fingernails. A tenant farmer has attempted to reclaim this wet field from the fen, but nine months later it appears to have fully reverted.

There's a luxurious growth of weeds. Groundsel smothers one side in a thick mat; I hope it will soon attract a magic carpet of goldfinches. Scarlet pimpernel creeps through the dried out clods which I scan for interesting finds to add to the clay pipe, knapped flints and verdigris encrusted bronze ring I discovered nearby. At the edge of the field where sedge and willow scrub encroach from the carr there is yellow fleabane in abundance. I found it a few days ago shining under the sun. I sat down and saw that it was covered in common blue butterflies. Two mobbed a clouded yellow.

                                                                            All photos by Jo Sinclair

I could hear the water buffalo a man told me have been introduced to do some conservation work on the fen which has long been abandoned but for regular game shoots. This chap laboured on the fen in his youth as a student, digging ditches. The privately owned piece of land rings with the atmosphere of the wild and ancient. Like a nature reserve but without the board walk and binoculars, it's a museum with a pulse.

I would like find out if there's a local name for this particular field as I found this dictionary of field names - by author John Field. Meanwhile I am looking forward to reading  Four Fields by Tim Dee.