Sometimes Nature conspires in your favour. I’ve been uprooting self-sown seedlings of oil-seed rape for a couple of months now, but when I noticed another one last weekend, I thought, “Spring!”, and left it where it was. This morning I photographed it (not noticing the marmalade hoverfly until I uploaded the files); this afternoon I thought I’d try one shot with a different lens, went back to it and all the petals had either shrivelled or blown away.
The last time I blipped oil-seed rape was in the middle of April, when the whole district seemed to be wearing yellow. Now that this plant has gone over (and will shortly be consigned to the compost heap) I don’t expect to see any more until next spring.
