Anyone who has witnessed a total solar eclipse has likely also noticed the sounds of silence accompanying “totality”. People have long reported anecdotally that birds stop chirping as the day suddenly darkens.
Recording the Sounds of an Eclipse
A study examining how birds responded to the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, systematically confirms that trend and expands upon it. The birds don’t go completely silent until 99 percent of the sun is obscured, according to a study published in Scientific Reports.
The study does two things that previous efforts haven’t accomplished. First, it took humans out of the equation because the presence of people could affect the birds’ reactions. Second, it used remote acoustic monitoring, which not only eliminates human distraction but also allows for a more comprehensive, systematic way to gather birdsong data.
Read More: I Traveled to See the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse and Discovered Mindfulness
Remote Bird Song Recording
Researchers placed 344 acoustic monitoring devices called “Haikuboxes” in the field to record birdsong before, during, and after the eclipse. They noticed differences in how the birds responded when humans were also heard, so they eliminated data from those sites.
“Our first, quick look at Haikubox data just a few hours after the eclipse showed a large dip in bird vocalizations around the time of peak totality,” David Mann, a researcher at Loggerhead Instruments (the company that builds Haikuboxes) and an author of the study, said in a press release.
“When we dove deeper into the data and removed any sites where humans may have influenced the birds’ behaviors, we found a much more complicated story. People were pretty excited about the total solar eclipse, and their celebrations likely affected the birds’ reactions,” Mann added in the release.
Unexpected Findings
With humans removed from the equation, the recordings DID show that birds quieted — but were only completely silent during “totality”.
Another unexpected finding showed varied responses between bird species and even different responses from the same species at different sites. For example, black-capped chickadees in a New York State location were quiet until well after totality, but the same species in Vermont increased their vocalizations during and immediately after peak totality
“The variability in bird responses and site differences was fascinating,” Mann said. “We really don’t know why birds had such different responses to the total darkness during the eclipse. Despite examining factors like temperature, cloud cover, and wind speed, we found no significant relationship with changes in vocalization rates. This strongly suggests that the sudden total darkness and associated changes in wind and temperature were the primary drivers of the observed behavioral shifts.”
Read More: Disoriented Animals Behave Strangely During Total Solar Eclipses
Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
Scientific Reports. Continental-scale behavioral response of birds to a total solar eclipse
Before joining Discover Magazine, Paul Smaglik spent over 20 years as a science journalist, specializing in U.S. life science policy and global scientific career issues. He began his career in newspapers, but switched to scientific magazines. His work has appeared in publications including Science News, Science, Nature, and Scientific American.
