There was a total or near total eclipse in Melbourne some time in the 70s(?),
in the afternoon, I think. I recall that it was like a dawn chorus when it got
light again. Perhaps your observation that the birds "carried on as before" was
because they were already doing their dawn chorus.
Peter Shute
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
> On Behalf Of
> John Leonard
> Sent: Wednesday, 14 November 2012 9:34 AM
> To: ;
> Subject: [Birding-Aus] Birds at the eclipse
>
> We came up to cairns for the eclipse, we were staying in palm
> cove but decided that there would be too much morning cloud
> over the sea. So we drove inland to Mareeba and a little
> further west and had perfect views of the eclipse from a stop
> by the road on high ground facing east amidst mango orchards.
> Around about were white-bellied cuckoo-shrikes, figbirds,
> pied butcherbirds and magpie larks. In front of us was a
> weedy field with cisticolas calling from it.
> The eclipse was about an hour after sunrise, and so not as
> dramatic as it would have been later; it only got appreciably
> dark five minutes before totality, and totality itself was
> quite short, only about 1 minute.
> My attention was torn between the sun and the birds, I didn't
> notice any unusual behaviour, all that happened was that for
> about the ten minutes of darkness the birds fell silent and
> didn't move about. After the eclipse they carried on as before.
> If we'd been on the coast it would have been interesting to
> see if the torresian imperial pigeons headed offshore when it
> got dark!
>
> John Leonard
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