Wild Arums shooting already?

Is it me or do things really start earlier each year? A quick look in my garden this week revealed a host of Wild Arums Arum maculatum already with shoots several centimetres tall under the oak trees by the stream.

The stream itself is, as usual at this time of the year, chock full of oak leaves. Many have caddis larvae feeding on them, along with other invertebrates. They will as always all be swept away eventually when the water level rises with the Spring rains. Last year was of course exceptional in terms of rainfall but even in drier years the leaves are usually gone by the end of March. Most of the caddis species will not have hatched by then, so the effect on them of this seasonal flush is interesting to ponder.

As has been mentioned before in the blog my stream is home to a very large population of Water Crickets, Velia caprai. Until early December these were always very much in evidence, with hundreds of individuals busily skating around on the surface, both day and night. But now January has come the numbers of crickets in evidence is very much reduced. None are now to be seen on the stream surface, though there are several on the surface of two ponds on the bank a couple of metres from the stream. Raking up the leaves on the bank reveals a few more crickets but in all it is a very reduced population that is overwintering.

I would imagine that any water level rise would be slow enough for these fast moving insects to leave the stream before they could get swept away but why else do they leave the stream for this short winter period? Whatever the reason they will be back in large numbers by the early Spring.