Actually, this other study which is based on “receiving input from over 10,000 users”
is a lot bigger than mine, which gathered data from about 150 people across Victoria. The resources available to me before the event (The Victorian Department of Education
and the Bird Observers Club, with some help from Monash University and Ken Simpson, in 1976, are clearly a lot less than the significant resources available in a huge population base in USA now, in a significant path of eastern USA, with all the social media
capabilities and recording equipment and automatic analysis systems that are available now. That could not be imagined between 1976 and 1982. But this study only describes bird song, my study was much broader than that in the scope of issues considered.
There have been many other descriptions of this kind of event over the decades but it is very difficult to get a compilation, as strangely, few refer to others.
Philip
From: Philip Veerman [
Sent: Wednesday, 15 October, 2025 4:10 PM
To: 'David McDonald (Personal)'; 'Canberrabirds list'
Subject: RE: [Canberrabirds] Lab Notes: How solar eclipses trick birds into singing - ABC listen
·
Nice to know. I believe that my study Veerman, P.A.
(1982) ‘A record of avian and other responses to the total solar eclipse – 23 October 1976’,
Australian Bird Watcher 9: 179–209. (I believe the world’s biggest analysis of bird and animal behaviour to a solar eclipse.) Although this one is probably bigger.
Philip
From: Canberrabirds [
On Behalf Of David McDonald (Personal)
Sent: Wednesday, 15 October, 2025 3:57 PM
To: Canberrabirds list
Subject: [Canberrabirds] Lab Notes: How solar eclipses trick birds into singing - ABC listen
Yesterday’s Lab Notes on ABC RN deals with this topic using data from the 2024 USA total eclipse of the sun:
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/lab-notes/lab-notes-how-solar-eclipses-trick-birds-into-singing/105885028
The 15 min podcast is based on the speaker’s open access paper published in
Science (the first author is a PhD student, pretty good to be in Science!) ‘Total solar eclipse triggers dawn behavior in birds: Insights from acoustic recordings and community science’
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adx3025
Best wishes – David
--
David McDonald
1004 Norton Road, Wamboin NSW 2620, Australia
Mobile: 0416 231 890 | Tel: (02) 6238 3706
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