>\I'll just note here that, since I'm
>sure there will be approximately 10 million more competent and
>better-equipped photographers than me covering the event, I won't be
>taking any pictures myself

Well, all right, I took a couple of pictures. Having had the unique experience of a total solar eclipse that happened to pass directly over my house, what the hell.

Here is a shot of totality itself, featuring ALL THE JPEG ARTIFACTS, ye gods, phone camera, are you OK?

I thought this next one was an interesting phenomenon. Totality began here at about 3:35 in the afternoon and lasted for only a few minutes, during which (contrary to the way they're often portrayed in fiction) it didn't get night-dark out--the solar corona was too bright for that--but it was dark enough for the streetlights to come on.

What's really interesting to me, though, is that bright area near the horizon. The camera is facing roughly west-southwest in this shot, so that's just about what the sky looks like a little while after sunset--but the eclipsed sun is nowhere near there. It's up above, out of shot. I always thought that bright horizon after sundown was because the sun was over there, but I guess it's just an artifact of the general brightness level or something? Not what I expected the sky to look like during a total eclipse, anyway.

Hey, look at this!

Did you know that if you hold up a colander during the crescent stages of a solar eclipse, each and every hole in it will project its own inverted image of the sun, pinhole camera-style, in the colander's shadow? Well, if you didn't, you do now. :)

That's all for the eclipse photos, but while we're here, about an hour after the event concluded, one of the weirdest things that has happened in the 21 years I've lived in this house happened. It was the first warm day we've had this year, so I had my front door open and the storm door in screen mode (as I often do on nice days in spring and fall). While I was sitting in my living room, a pigeon flew smack into the middle of the screen and died.

That's weird, but it's not The Weird Thing. This is: when I went to the door to see if the bird that had just hit the screen was in fact dead, I startled another bird that was standing over the carcass on my top step. Rather than fly away altogether, this bird retired to one of the posts at the top of my front walk's lower steps and kept watch on me.

According to Cornell University's MERLIN bird identification app, that is most likely a female American kestrel. Who just happened to be on the scene seconds after a pigeon flew full-speed into my screen door.

I think what we have here is your classic "hot pursuit leading to a fatal crash" scenario, except with a small falcon and a pigeon instead of cops and a car thief. Pigeon probably thought "aha, I'll lose her in there" and then WHACK.

Caution: below this point are a couple of photos that include an obviously dead bird. If you're upset by that kind of thing, consider not reading on.


















While I stood there, the kestrel evidently decided I wasn't going to come out and flew back over to continue her investigation.

She got a little closer than that, about halfway from her position in that shot to the pigeon, but when I tried to get a picture of that, she flew away--not just back to the post, but clear out of sight around the barn.

Not certain what the hell else to do, I went to my tool room and got a shovel-like implement with which to remove the dead pigeon from my front stoop. By the time I got back...

... it appeared that disassembly had commenced, though the kestrel herself seems to have stepped out for a moment. At least she was kind enough to move the deceased down to the lower boardwalk and not do the job right smack in front of my door.

At this point I decided "OK, I don't have the spoons for this" and went back to what I was doing.

Next day, the only sign that the pigeon had ever existed was a scattering of feathers on the lawn. In my book, this makes Mme. Kestrel a good neighbor.

Thinking about it, I kind of wonder now how long she's been in the area, and whether her presence is the reason why we've had far fewer pigeons around the place for the last year or so than in the two or three years previous to that, when there was a whole flock of them living in and around my barn and being a real problem. If so, I'm inclined to offer Mme. Kestrel a competitive tax incentive program if she'll stay in the neighborhood, maybe even get a few of her friends to move in.

Still, though, that was frickin' weird. And within an hour or two of the eclipse, too, which probably made it feel even weirder than it was.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.