Amazing stuff! Birds get confused too! 😊🐦
"But the eclipse wasn’t just limited to atmospheric findings. Using more than 10,000 observations from citizen scientists and over 100,000 vocalizations, a team of biologists aimed to find out how birds respond when it suddenly gets dark during the day. They found that, while dusk-singing birds did not change their behavior before or during the eclipse, those that sing in the morning were affected. Their early findings, published as a preprint on bioRxiv, revealed that more than half of wild bird species started singing their dawn chorus after the eclipse, as if it were sunrise. The study highlights the sensitivity of animal behavior to light—in a world where artificial light is on the increase."
From the abstract:
"On April 8th 2024, a total solar eclipse disrupted light-dark cycles for North American birds during the lead-up to spring reproduction. Compiling over 10,000 community observations and AI analyses of nearly 100,000 vocalizations, we found that bird behavior was significantly affected by these few minutes of unexpected afternoon darkness. More than half of wild bird species changed their biological rhythms, with many producing a dawn chorus in the aftermath of the eclipse. This natural experiment demonstrates the power of technology-enabled and public science projects to understand our natural world. Further, it underscores the power of light in structuring animal behavior: even when 'night' lasts for just four minutes, robust behavioral changes ensue."
AI, citizen science, and the 2024 eclipse emphasize the importance of light for bird behavior (open access)
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