The Eclipse and the Stork
Explanation:
How do animals react to a total
solar eclipse?
The featured image shows
a stork roosting on her nest in Poland at a partial phase of the recent
total solar eclipse.
If you are lucky enough to experience a total eclipse somewhere quiet and close
to nature, you may be able to notice unusual daytime animal
behaviors.
During totality, you may hear nighttime
sounds like crickets and frogs and see fireflies.
In the dark, most birds are quiet.
Thinking that it is time to go to bed, ducks and other waterfowl prepare to sleep
on one leg, with their heads turned around and their beaks tucked into their back
feathers (they don't really sleep with their heads tucked
under one wing).
When sunlight returns
at the end of totality, songbirds greet the new "morning" with their dawn songs.
The crickets and frogs go quiet
again.
Animals and people resume their lifes, only briefly disturbed by the chance
alignment of our Sun and Moon.
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