Mothtraps aren't everything.

Well I thought, I can't write a blog about checking flowering ivy without  going out and doing it myself. So last night, just after seven I went out on the bike having recce'd some likely looking patches less than half-a-mile from the house. It always surprising how much of something you find once you look for it properly. It is everywhere.

I started out checking with a red light, but found this difficult to get on with, so resorted to white after a few minutes. The first patch I checked had a Large Yellow Underwing and just fifty metres later I came across a Common Marbled Carpet, its wings held back like a butterfly and it's probiscis well and truly wedged in to a flower. I estimated that only about 10% of the ivy that I checked was in flower, so there is still plenty of time left in the season.

I had to head off to a meeting at eight and as I pedalled away, I felt duty-bound to explain to a lady dog-walker what I was doing. She seemed a bit on edge by the goings-on of a luminous-jacketed headtorch-wearing cyclist. I had the evidence in some pots, so my story stood up to scrutiny.

All of the moths were easy to 'pot'. They do have a tendency to drop off, so it is best to have the pot underneath rather than coming in from the side.

Post-meeting around ten, a leisurely meander home along a different stretch was much more productive. Another Large Yellow Underwing, four Angle Shades and best of all a Grey Shoulder-Knot. This is our third Autumn in the village and this is the first time that I have recorded this species. Waring/Townsend shows it as common, but it goes to show that not everything comes to light (well my actinic anyway). This takes the Stutton moth list to 313 species since July 2010.

FOOTNOTE: I saw on the Beeb today that the whale at Shingle Street has now been re-identified as a Fin Whale.