I saw Dave's post about finding Autumnal Rustic for the first time in Bernwood Forest and his lament about the disused railway cutting at Salden (near Mursley) where he had eight to light twelve years ago, but which has been destroyed as a habitat by East-West Rail's work to re-construct the railway line.
Salden cutting is just down the line from my garden - about 3¼ km - and the almost-adjacent Salden Wood is slightly closer. Even though my garden is not near any significant piece of good woodland, I had a total of nine Autumnal Rustic in my own garden last year, spread across four nights in an eight-day period starting on 14th September. So when I set out the traps on Wednesday night (15th), I was keeping my fingers crossed.
Two individuals duly turned up: I found one outside the trap at about midnight, and the other was found when I emptied the trap the next morning. Under "habitat", the guide book says "Heathland, moorland, rough grassland, downland (provided it is not heavily grazed) and other open country, on light sandy or chalky soils. Also fens, shingle beaches and open woodland." Well, in my intensively-grazed corner of the heavy clay of Aylesbury Vale, most of those are noticeable by their absence. The reference to rough grassland does intrigue me because in my village there is an area of rough grassland where grazing was abandoned ten or more years ago and it is gradually scrubbing over. Unfortunately, that area lies immediately south of the Varsity Line, and EWR have built one of their haul roads across a part of it. If that's where the local Autumnal Rustics call home, then they have escaped destruction by a gnat's whisker.
Considerably more likely though is that they have taken a slightly longer flight from somewhere on the greensand heath or woodland just over the county boundary in Bedfordshire. Indeed, a glance at iRecord shows a cluster of records from Heath & Reach, which is only about 8 km from my garden and 11 km from Salden.
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| Autumnal Rustic Newton Longville, 15th September |
Tim Arnold
Hi Tim,
ReplyDeleteThere are a small number of mostly older records from the area around Milton Keynes, including Lavendon (1992), Stony Stratford (1996) & Fenny Stratford (2001). While they could be wanderers from the greensand ridge, the numbers I got at Salden and which you've had at Newton Longville suggest that maybe we have another colony to track down.