Power is restored

**Some things to always have on hand around here. Plus a generator, water, and plenty of easy-to-prepare meals.**

Our township was without electricity for almost 24 hours. Not a record here. One of the longest was three days in December 2022. That event occurred during a massive winter storm called the Blue Blizzard. It buried huge swathes of the state and our neighboring states with two feet or more of snow mixed with freezing rain. I am working on a post about that, discussing the ecological consequences resulting from massive forest destruction brought by the storm.

The recent power outage was attributed to a rodent, but no explanation was given as to how it did that. Did it get inside a transformer? Short out exposed wires by falling on them? Whatever it did caused a fire in the substation, destroying transformers.

There have been problems with that substation all summer. In the last two weeks, before this blackout, there had been three other power surges followed by short power interruptions. Power surges and brief interruptions have been happening all summer. I haven’t heard why any of those happened. They weren’t big enough to get anyone’s attention, I guess.

So for now we have electricity.

My computer came back to life, too. Why? I don’t know. But it did. It seems to have suffered no ill effects, and all files look good. I’ll get it checked anyway. In the meantime, I can get back to writing and editing new posts and reading yours comfortably on a large screen.

Macrochilo Bivittata: A Rare Wetland Moth

Macrochilo bivittata is one of those moths I look forward to seeing every year. It isn’t a showy species, just a small triangular-shaped moth with four dark stripes against a buff to brown background, some prominent wing venation, and two pairs of dots. It is in the Herminiinae or litter moths, named because the larvae of many species feed on fallen or dead leaves and fallen fruit.

The reason I get excited about seeing it again is that where I live is one of the few known places in North America where it occurs. Across its range, Macrochilo bivittata is uncommon to rare. Minnesota and Wisconsin appear to have the largest number of observations. The rarity of Macrochilo bivittata may be a lack of verified observations and not rarity based on specialized habits or food requirements, loss of habitat, or replacement by a non-native species. More searches in appropriate habitat could help to resolve this.

A few Macrochilo bivittata moths come to my moth light every year in July. But it is in a nearby old marsh grass hayfield, now reverting to sedge meadow-shrub carr wetland, where I see many more. As I walk through the tall grasses, sedges, and willow shrubs, dozens of these little moths fly ahead of me to escape the disturbance.

**The sedge meadow-shrub carr wetland where *Macrochilo bivittata* lives. Except for a few patches of canary grass, most of the plant species here are native.**

The food preferences of Macrochilo bivittata are not known. It is thought their larvae feed on leaf litter like other members of the Herminiinae. There is certainly an abundance of leaf litter out there under the grasses and willows in the old hayfield. Macrochilo bivittata seems to be doing very well with that.

Posts I’m working on

I’ve got several posts in the works. One is on mayflies, insects that spend much of their lives in clean freshwater ecosystems. Fascinating insects with a lineage that pre-dates the dinosaurs.

Another post is about some moths in the Tortricidae that have recently entered North America. Hedya salicella is one of those moths, but there are others. They have appeared in various places in the US and Canada, mostly in the east.

It looks like my computer is fried, but the hard drive might be salvaged. Even the screen and keyboard are destroyed. Fortunately, most of the files are backed up. (UPDATE: my computer came back to life!)

Computer destroyed

So my computer is destroyed. A power surge, the fourth one in ten days, has fried the circuits. I have some posts scheduled for the next three weeks or so. But as for working on new ones that’s on hold. Maybe it can be fixed, maybe not.

I won’t be able to read othet peoples’ posts either. Trying to do this on a tiny phone is too hard.

See you soon!