Will pets and wildlife go blind looking at the sun today? How will animals react when a fake twilight and night descends? In Newport Oregon, the sun rises at 6:25am and 2.5 hours later darkness resumes as the moon blocks out the sun. Bees have been seen returning to their hives in past eclipses. Will songbirds go to sleep while bats and owls wake up? What about crickets and frogs? Will they begin their crepuscular chorus and mosquitoes begin their evening flights? As the sunlight increases, birds may consider it as an unusually swift return to sunrise and begin their morning songs. Perhaps butterflies will find a resting spot and moths will become active.
There aren’t many scientific studies of how wildlife responds to a total eclipse (and even less for plants). Orb-weaving spiders were studied in Veracruz, Mexico during a 1991 eclipse.
Spiders behaved in a manner typical of daily activity until totality, when many began taking down webs. After solar reappearance, most spiders that had begun taking down webs rebuilt them.
Who’s going to freak out? Will coyotes howl? The Boston Society of Natural History had a citizen science
project to document nature’s responses during a 1932 eclipse and received over 500 observations.
Many noticed crickets starting to sing their “night” song. Bees headed back to their hives “in a great rush,” while moths turned up. Chickens, pigeons, turkeys, and ducks trooped off for their coops, while seagulls largely headed back to rocky islets to roost.
About half of the dogs observed during the eclipse appeared frightened. A chow pup ran under a shed, for example, and wouldn’t come out.
People have seen critters freaking out during past eclipses. Reportedly in 1560, birds fell out of the sky. (This happens outside eclipses, too. For example last year in Boston dozens of grackles fell simultaneously.) In 1900, a doctor in Portugal saw pigeons “stretching their necks upward to the sky as if apprehensive of the approach of some bird of prey. When the sun reappeared, they recommenced eating,.” In 1969 in California, a antelope ground squirrel living on the roof of a UCLA science building had an activity wheel high intensity marathon.
Cows have a reputation for not giving a damn. They just keep grazing and chewing their cud. We have much less information on plant responses than animals so you might focus on flowers that normally close at night, such as California poppy, morning glory, African daisy, Rose of Sharon, and lotus. What will daylilies, whose flowers last one day length, do? Drop their blossoms and open new ones? Moonflowers bloom at night — will the brief period of totality trigger them to open?
The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns spinning around us.
We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
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Wildlife have had millennia of exposure to eclipses and looking directly at the sun isn’t a survival skill. They don’t stare at the sun normally or we’d see a lot more blind animals.
Answers to the pet question vary from “better safe than sorry” to “nah, they don’t stare up at the sun any other day, do they?” Our household animals look to us for cues about how to respond. If we dramatize the situation, they will pick up on our energy. The loud noises and colors of fireworks aren’t part of an eclipse so dogs aren’t as likely to be afraid. I don’t know why half the dogs observed in 1932 were spooked. Perhaps our modern dogs will be more blasé?
What about invertebrates? When the eclipse occurs over the ocean what will the northern krill do? They usually come to surface at night to eat and then drop back down to 200 feet or more when the moon rises. In 1997, researchers found that krill came to the surface to feed for two hours during an eclipse. So did plankton, as well as larvae of shrimp, barnacles, and clams.
Usually sunrise is greeted with bird song and insects, and twilight triggers frog and insect sounds. Here’s normal morning bird songs.
In 1963, by Peter Paul Kellogg, a professor of ornithology and bioacoustics at Cornell went to Maine to record nature sounds during an eclipse.
“As the darkness descended, bird song fell off noticeably but some species, according to our recordings, never did stop completely.” he wrote. “The per-chic-o-ree of the Goldfinch was heard clearly in the middle of the totality; the Hermit Thrush and Swainson’s Thrush sang weakly during the darkness; a Veery called.” Despite the short period of darkness—about twice the brightness of a full moon, he wrote—no Eastern Whip-poor-wills took the opportunity to sing. After the light returned, the first call was a spring peeper (frog), and then a White-throated Sparrow, a Hermit Thrush, and a Swainson’s Thrush.
This year, scientists are studying responses of nature to the eclipse. The range of observations is boosted by crowd-sourced data and studies conducted in zoos and aquariums. South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston (final eclipse spot over North America) will monitor their animals during the 96 seconds of total dark. Video camera are set up in the aquarium’s marsh and forest exhibits to collect information.
You can be part of the citizen science event Life Responds coordinated by Cal Academy of Science using the iNaturalist app. Be sure to choose one animal, plant, or one small area to observe during the eclipse, especially during totality (or whatever percent you have) as there’s not much time to take notes — 100 seconds or so.
Throughout the centuries, people have witnessed and reported the unusual effects of solar eclipses on animals and their change in behavior . . . The Life Responds project . . . asks the public to collect data on animal behavior before, during, and after the August 21 eclipse.
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Remote Viewing Online
- Watch a livestream. NASA has different livestream websites including Youtube and offers a 360o view.
- USA Today will broadcast on Facebook Live.
- The Weather Channel partnered with Twitter for a livestream. Other local and national options are listed here.
- Two live cams, Decorah and Decorah North, will be turned on between 11:00am and 3pm CT for the eclipse. You might see the eagles and see/hear other birds as well. Tell Raptor Research Project if you see or hear anything interesting.
Tell us what you see and hear today.