yeah ya gotta love natures response Geoff - at the 2002 dec aussie one - we didnt expect to see much in the way of animal/bird life reactions out there - but during totality and out of the small ancient saltbush/bluebush (i have been reliably informed they can be as old as 400 - 500 yrs in age!! oh well let the sheep/cattle graze on it
) came some surprisingly large (they seemed bigger than the bushes they came out of! almost like the bushes came to life and flew about!) and startled birds of some description (dunno what they were- they kinda looked like pheasants from a distance? bush turkeys???)). They flapped around disorientated in circles, like they were drunk!
i failed to mention earlier, another interesting view of you get from short TSE's of the nature of the 2002 south aussie one - read apparent smaller disc size of the moon, it fitted perfect
- you get really nice baileys beads, and the prominences around the sun are visible NE all the way thru :-)))))) that was pretty cool