Follow-up on yesterday's post

Living on Rakiura is great every day - but sometimes there is a day so special that I can't imagine a better place in the Universe to be. Today was such a day; what a buzz to walk to work accompanied by birdsong ringing in my ears, then stand in the middle of a tui raid with birds flying just above my head. I walked down to get milk just before 10am and watched the fog roll in over the boats in Halfmoon Bay. An hour later the fog left leaving blue skies and a temperature that soared to 27°C. What better excuse than to go slow-walking in the bush after I got home from work!

The female flowers of Coprosma foetidissima - standing upright to catch
the pollen from the male flowers

While I was taking the Coprosma photos a crane fly hovered nearby and then landed where I was standing. I took full advantage of this invitation and snapped away.

The filmy ferns deep in the bush are shrivelling up but their darker colouration means that you can see the spores more clearly.

The sunlight filtering through the canopy made some features stand out like a singer under spotlight...

Koru within koru - so symbolic of new life

Sun shining on moss stalks and spore capsules

A shy spider abseiled down and became my next subject.

There's been a stack of moths on the windows over the last couple of nights; they may be the native grass moth, Orocrambus flexuosellus but will put the photo up on NatureWatch to check. They rise in masses as I walk through the grass and aren't easy to photograph - I'm picking that the warm weather has caused them to 'hatch' - my mission is to try and photograph one with its wings outstretched!
Update 16 October: the NatureWatch identification was the Diamondback moth (Plutella xylostella), a European moth that has spread worldwide. It's also known as the cabbage moth and is a pest of brassica crops.

An earthquake at 6.13pm gently moved the earth for me, not sure about the heavens; it's certainly been a day to remember.