Sollar eclipse and meteror shower

[Woody girl]

Last night, two friends and I went up to the top of the moor to watch the eclipse. There were tons of people there, but we just managed to find a spot to park up and face the sunset. We watched the eclipse with one pair of solar glasses between , so we had a lot of fun taking turns and exclaiming " wow! Just look at it now.!"
Eventualy we trogged off to their air b&b, and though they slept inside, I stayed out, with my sleeping bag, treckology mat and watched the shooting stars. As it got realy dark, I had a marvellous view of the milky way, and spent a few hours marvellous at the things flying about the night sky. It was very busy with planes, satellites and shooting stars. I counted 27, before falling asleep on top of my bag with just a throw over me. It was incredibly warm, even in the early hours, before I could get to see the planetary alignment.
Woke about 7am, to the wittering of swifts, on the nearby wires. And exmoor ponies weighing, in the field opposite.. After a swift cup of tea, I packed up and came home to have a shower and change of clothes, and some breakfast.
A beautiful night on exmoor. I feel very blessed to have witnessed such a beautiful night, without a tarp or tent blocking my view of the sky.
I was expecting to wake cold, stiff and tired, but actualy felt warm and energised and moved fairly easily after the first few seconds of trying to get up off the floor and stumble to a seat. All my aches of the day before had gone, and I was still in absolute awe of the things I saw, even though I only got 5 hrs sleep.

 

[HorseGuy]

That sounds like a wonderful way to spend the night.

 

[Silverclaws2]

Having already observed a full eclipse back in '99 I wasn't particularly interested in watching the spectacle again through having another interest the '99 event caused me to ponder. That other interest was to observe the actions of the visible wildlife after noticing what sheep in a field did back then. To say yeah there was a reaction for the gulls and crows hereabouts took to the air and made a right old racket very close to and on the point of maximum sun coverage.

 

[PoppyD]

That is quite unusual behaviour from the crows. It should be the opposite. Unless they weren’t in their usual roosting places and left quickly to get there. Where was this?

 

[Toddy]

Round here the corvids rise and chuckle/cackle in huge numbers at dusk though.
Admitedly there are two big rookeries within a couple of hundred metres, but dusk can be dramatically scary seeming for strangers
It wasn't very dark here during the eclipse, just a little gloomy, I wonder how they'd have reacted to a very dark one ?

 

[PoppyD]

Mad panic to get to their regular roosts. Their internal clocks are as good as a watch. Getting dark an hour and a half early would have been as bad to them as your alarm clock going off a half hour after you were supposed to be in an important meeting at work. It is fascinating behaviour. I have a few cameras set up at wasps nest and one at an hornets and will go tomorrow to get the data from last night from the wasps. But the hornets is in Reading so will be a while to see that.

 

[HorseGuy]

Yesterday as the eclipse was beginning when the light had dimmed and gone an unusual colour, I noticed a magpie behaving rather oddly. It was huddled down on a roof in a weird sitting like stance that I have never seen a magpie do before. It also had its feathers partially fluffed out like they do during the winter when it gets cold. It was sitting totally still but I had the feeling it was following my movement with its eyes as I walked past and it seemed to have a worried expression on its face (that last part about the facial expression may have been my imagination but I swear it feels like it did). As crazy as this sounds my six sense could just feel the fear pouring of this frightened little bird.