A reminder of winter and webs! I left early to try and find the Spotted Harrier, in a small wetland paddock, an open area filled with prickly dead Scottish thistles, deep hummocks of kikuyu, clumps of love grass, various weeds and juicy succulent pig face. The opening is surrounded by gnarly tangled gums. It is where the Harrier hunts and, I had set aside the morning to sit and wait but he did not come. The only photographs I got were of tiny spider webs. When the sun breaks over the horizon and sits low in the sky the angle of the light reveals a little seen world, a spidery empire. It is cold, the grass is crunchy and still frozen with tiny ice crystals falling away as I walk through it. Tiny silvery webs hang suspended from almost every plant, thousands of dew drops sparkle and refract light in all directions, blades of grass and reeds bent by the extra watery weight, it is as if a hidden faery realm is revealed, but for just a few minutes. I imagine millions of little spiders spinning their webs each night, waiting silently in their silk traps to ambush tiny insects, then descending into hiding as dawn breaks only to do it all again the next night and the next. As the sun rises, the angle of light changes and the faery world fades. The dew drops fall and the blades of grass and reeds straighten. A breeze ripples through the undergrowth and the tiny webs begin to decay, broken and distorted by the movement, the spidery kingdom gone until the darkness of the next night.