Two days ago I was in Austin, TX sitting on a lounge chair looking up into the cloudy sky with my family, moments from totality. We made the trip south for my nephew’s wedding, and stayed in town for the big celestial show. So there we were, observing the moon inching its way—from our perspective—across the face of the sun. The cloud breaks actually enhanced the elongated experience of the partial eclipse phases. The wisps of vapor that floated in the atmosphere between the sun, moon, and us added yet another layer. Here is the scene leading up to totality in a time-lapse:
I had placed two audio recording devices within a couple hundred feet of our viewing spot. One captured a small crowd of 20-or-so people on nearby patio, and the ambient sound all around. Another was trained on the nearby lake and wooded area that played host to an active wildlife population.
The soundscape you are hearing is the blend of the two. I made an effort to keep them discernible: the wildlife signal is dominant in the left stereo channel and the crowd signal is dominant in the right channel. This plays out over 20 minutes with totality occurring at the midpoint (10:00).
Our view of totality was almost entirely obscured by passing low clouds. We got just a brief glimpse of the corona filtering through a small cloud break. Here is a clip of the moments just after totality:
Reflections
The crowd audio gives a good play-by-play of the climatic surprises and upsets. The wildlife soundscape tracks the stages of the eclipse loosely.
It is true that birds go quiet in a total eclipse, as do frogs, it seems. Here, an Eastern Phoebe is the last to catch on, and a Canada Goose is the first to break the silence. The goose is followed by tentative Northern Cardinals, White-winged Doves, Carolina Chickadees, crows, and cricket frogs.
Unbeknownst to me, country music was introduced into to the wildlife soundscape by what I have to guess was the fisherman I observed in a kayak. This was an unwelcome surprise to me, but I find myself warming to it!
My guess is if you asked anyone in the crowd if they noticed the train or airplane or motorcycle pass by, they wouldn’t be able to recall. As a recordist, hoping to get some special “tape”, I was all-too-aware of these incursions.
It was impossible for me to conceal my disappointment in not getting a better view of totality, even though the other aspects of the experience (the swift transition to twilight, the dip in temperature, the change in the soundscape, the crescent shaped patterns in the shadows) remained enchanting. Listening back, I hear that I was not alone. Brief squeals of delight are interspersed by chagrined peals of nervous laughter.
My wife gracefully maintains that the experience was perfect, and she was not the least bit disappointed. What does this say about me, that I was hoping for something more akin to what we witnessed in 2017? I still wonder.
Listening to the Total Eclipse