WATCH BIRDS & ANIMALS DURING THE ECLIPSE
January 12th, 2010 | Published in Introduction | 14 Comments
ENTER YOUR DATA AND OBSERVATIONS ONLINE
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Have you wondered how animals and birds respond during a solar eclipse?
Here is a chance for you to contribute information based on your own observations during the solar eclipse on 15 January 2010! It’s very easy: just download a data collection form and begin watching.
EclipseWatch collects information about the flight and sounds of birds and animals before, during, and after the eclipse. Please participate no matter where you are in the country, and no matter what the intensity of the eclipse will be in your area. The idea is to compare the reaction of animals across regions of different coverage of the eclipse.
LEARN MORE ABOUT CITIZEN SCIENCE AND OTHER INITIATIVES LIKE ECLIPSEWATCH
January 13th, 2010 at 10:28 am (#)
For a study carried out three decades ago (Feb 1980) check this out:
Kurup, G. U. & Menon, R. K. G. (1989) Behaviour of blackbuck, Antilope cervicapra cervicapra (Linnaeus), during solar eclipse of 1980. Records of the Zoological Survey of India 85(4): 539-546.
Available here:
http://blackbuck.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/kurupmenon1989.pdf
January 13th, 2010 at 4:27 pm (#)
This might be by slip of pen – house lizards are geckos, not geckoes
There are quite a few in the early volumes of Mayura:
Joshi, R. C. (1980). Behavior of House Crow (Corvus splendens) during the solar eclipse. Mayura 1(1): 9.
Kumar, S. A. (1980). Solar Eclipse – Notes on behavioral observations of water birds. Mayura 1(2): 3-13.
Banu, A. and K. Kumudanathan (1980). An observation on the behavior of sparrows during the solar eclipse. Mayura 1(2): 19.
Singh, T. G. M. (1980). An observation on the behavior of Indian Baya (Polceus philippinus) in captivity during solar eclipse. Mayura 1(2): 20-21.
Ali, S. (1980). Effect of recent solar eclipse on bird behavior. Mayura 1(3 & 4): 5.
Rao, E. V. (1980). Behavior of Koels at the time of solar eclipse on bird behavior on 16-2-1980. Mayura 1(3 & 4): 10.
Raju, A. S. (1981). The effect of solar eclipse on parakeets and other birds on 16-2-1980 in Maruteru, west Godavari Dist., A.P. Mayura 2(3): 5-6.
January 15th, 2010 at 6:14 am (#)
11:40 Sun is out! Eclipse at about 7-10%, but no reduction in light. Only a kite in the sky.
10:40 Cloudy at NCBS (north Bangalore). One of us saw a kite, another a crow. Nothing else.
January 15th, 2010 at 6:22 am (#)
Dont know about the animals yet, but people showing strange behaviour on the 2nd floor of NCBS.
January 15th, 2010 at 6:52 am (#)
12:10 observation: nothing happening, except a palm squirrel is calling like crazy! Eclipse at about 20-25%, light looks a bit strange, but that might only be my imagination. (At NCBS, Bangalore.)
January 15th, 2010 at 7:07 am (#)
Pune: The Crow Pheasants (Bharadwaj) were calling out to each other non stop. No kites in the sky. Cats very still and lazing around(just like normal).
January 15th, 2010 at 8:34 am (#)
Watching Umesh on NDTV!!
January 15th, 2010 at 10:00 am (#)
Jan 15, 2010
Observed the birds at 12:15pm and then again between 1:10pm – 1:30pm. There was no marked difference in the behaviour.
At 25% cover, birds were still chirping and flying around. Swallows seemed to be flying a little haphazardly and excitedly, but that is just my opinion.
At 85% coverage, the scene was completely normal. There were 4-5 kites flying low and high. Swallows were flying about. Birds were chirping normally.
Whitefield, Bangalore.
January 15th, 2010 at 10:54 am (#)
January 15, 2010 at 1330hrs. Mumbai.
A flock of Sparrows was calling very loudly in a sort of agitated calls. Such calls are normally observed in the evening when it is time for roosting.
January 15th, 2010 at 11:33 am (#)
Managed to get some pics of the partial eclipse at Mumbai. Here is the link:
http://anushankarn.blogspot.com/2010/01/partial-solar-eclipse-in-mumbai.html
January 15th, 2010 at 12:34 pm (#)
Aletha, Arun: If you happen to have more formal and structured information, we would love to have it – please fill in the online form: http://www.eclipsewatch.in/?page=participate
Anu: Thanks for the pic! Why don’t you also add it to the Facebook event page?
Prashanth: Thank you! Please could you also fill in the online form: http://www.eclipsewatch.in/?page=participate This would make your data part of the larger set and therefore much more valuable!
January 15th, 2010 at 2:52 pm (#)
My son, Master Vedant and daughter Pranjali observed that our pet cat was lazying around its time and sleeping in the deem sunlight of the eclipse. It is important to tell that the cat usually did not behave like this in last one month (that’s the time we know it). I was out to observe the birds. The time it lay lazy was from 1300 hrs to 1500 hrs with some gaps when she entered our home.
January 16th, 2010 at 9:02 am (#)
We Conducted a study on the activity patterns of three fish species (Macropodus clupans), Peocilia reticulata , and Colisa lalia during the time of eclipse. The first group was collected from the field and the others were aquarium reared.Macropodus exhibited reduction in their activities and went down to the bottom of their home aquarium as the eclipse proceeded. Their activity reduced to just coming to the surface for gulping air once in 15 minutes.However they retained their activity as the eclipse reached the climax. There was no variation in the activity patterns of the other fish species.Results shows that eclipse can affect the behavior of fishes. This obervations were telecasted by the Channel Asianet.
January 18th, 2010 at 11:17 am (#)
If there was any truth in it the scientist would have not waited for us to research and tell them it happens. Pure waste of time this kind of activity. What is the diffrence between the sun getting covered by the moon or by a dark cloud?