A whole lot of newspaper column and webpage was filled in the last number of days hyping up the solar eclipse that occurred this morning. Some less reputable papers had 'experts claiming' that animals would be driven to 'unpredictable behaviours' by the eclipse - as vague a threat as you'll find.

There were also claims that the soundscape would fall silent as birds became confused about the time of day. I decided to record for a while to see if I could hear it myself.

While there wasn't a complete dead stop to the bird song, it definitely quietened down during the eclipse. I have a feeling that city birds may already suffer confusion thanks to artificial lighting, so that may account for the groups that continued singing even as it went dark.

The white rectangle highlights the birdsong. You can see it reducing as the eclipse reaches it's peak.