Here in west Pulaski County, the siskins at my feeder gradually left as the
light dimmed, just as they would do at dusk, and the afternoon birdsong
(titmice, b&w warblers, pine warblers, etc) slowly died down too. During
totality I observed a couple of small birds flying overhead, including one
unidentified chip call from one of them. Unsure if they were starting
migration, heading to a roost, or just flying around like normal. They were
heading south if I remember correctly. The birdsong after totality was
definitely louder and more varied than typical afternoon song, so some
birds were likely singing their morning songs.
As for my domestic farm birds, I was wondering if the chickens would go
inside their coop since it resembled dusk, but they didn't. If I had to
guess, probably the "sunset" was too fast, since they normally head in just
when it's getting nearly dark, which is a period that the eclipse
completely skipped over. The chickens did seem a bit lethargic though, as
if they were getting tired and about to to head inside and roost. Our
mallard seemed agitated during totality and was quacking loudly, but also
sometimes he just does that so I can't be sure it was a response to the
eclipse. Lucy the emu didn't particularly care as far as I could tell.
Aster Droste (he/him)
PS: My favorite thing about the moments before totality (besides the
interesting shadows) was the complete silence coming from the road by our
house. It's usually a pretty significant source of noise pollution
throughout the day, but with just a few minutes until totality, I assume
most people found a place to stop and watch. With no noisy cars, I could
hear a black and white warbler way off in our neighbor's woods, which was
pretty cool.
On Tue, Apr 9, 2024, 6:32 PM Anderson, Leif - FS, AR <
<000002b0bc8b0106-dmarc-request...> wrote:
> Greetings all,
>
> The last 3 days I ‘ve had the pleasure of being a volunteer for some neat
> bioacoustic eclipse research. Led by Douglas Barron and his undergrad
> student Colton Morris, from AR Tech University.
>
>
>
> I had 3 interesting bird observations.
>
> During the partial portion of the eclipse 2 White-throated Sparrows
> stopped feeding/calling/singing and flew up into a Cedar bush. They stayed
> on the “roost” until after totality then resumed their normal feeding
> behavior.
>
>
>
> The end of totality “Dawn chorus” at 1:54pm was just as good as our normal
> dawn chorus.
>
>
>
> About 4 min into totality a Barred Owl started calling.
>
>
>
> Holla Bend NWR hosted about 800 eclipse visitors, many of whom were
> birders/ nature lovers from all over the country, Canada and even a birding
> family from the Czech Republic.
>
>
>
> , Leif
>
>
>
>
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