Solar Phenomena Are For The Birds!

Remember in happier times last year when the sun disappeared in defiance of all primal reason? Our household had snacks.

Well, it turns out that was quite the event for the birds as well. Since most of them didn't have tiny little solar-eclipse glasses to enjoy the festivities (probably because they don't have ears to perch the glasses stems on), they needed to fall back on their innate instincts and sing. In particular, scientists discovered that – thanks to an app gathering bird-song data from over 10,000 users – about half of bird species sang their usual "Hey, it's dawn now!" song once the eclipse was over, even though "nightfall" wasn't that long.

The journal Science has the story of what they did and what they discovered. The abstract at the beginning was a delightful reminder of that celestial event, but the whole thing's a cute read – especially if you like fine-feathered friends as much as I do.

-- Steven Marsh