New Zealand early spring

Japonica

Fly across the Tasman from Sydney to Wellington in September and suddenly you are in a different season. Early spring. The willows are covered in catkins, the Japonica is flowering and in the warmer valleys the first leaves of spring are unfolding. 

There is still a bitter wind blowing down from the mountains which have just had a new coating of snow; 25 cm says the Bureau of Meteorology.

Catkins on a willow tree