The Birds

Through the woods and up the hill with my essential eclipse hunting supplies. Retro looking cardboard solar glasses, plastic bag stuffed with newspapers to sit on, phone to take pot luck camera shots, iPad to timelapse the change in light over Bennachie to the west and the all important emergency crisps and can of diet coke.

At times like these it's important to share the experience with someone you love and that is appreciative and in awe of such a great event. So I took Thumper. Who miaowed. A lot. The top of the hill is well out of his comfort zone. Or maybe it was because the two sparrow hawks above us reckoned he was definately the better option for picking up and carrying off, as opposed to biting off more than they could chew with my substantial personage.

They flew off and so we were alone, the skies and clouds above, the wilds around us, Aberdeenshire's rolling hills to the West, oh, and a random lady with a dog that gave me a wide berth. Probably because I was having a conversation with the cat and skipping round the platform where I'd propped up the iPod heath Robinson styleee with some rocks and my trusty diet coke can. I waved to make sure she knew I wasn't a nutter, but, indeed, a friendly nutter. Luckily, she kept on her wide berth trajectory so I could continue my Back to the Future mad scientist behaviour.

So, the glasses worked. Amazeballs! Cracking view of the eclipse, and it got very cold for a few minutes, but it didn't exactly get dark. In fact did it change at all?? My timelapse didnt capture any biblical sky changes to the west, I must have suspected as much when i admittedly got a little bored half way through proceedings and started doing random sudden appearances on the footage. Thumper wanted in on the action and decided to block the iPad's view completely anyway by jumping up and knocking everything over then refusing to stop catwalking in front of the lens.

I noticed the birds were only quiet for the shortest of moments, before the forest became alive with the spring chitter chatter of avian courtship and frenetic nest building.

Thumper signalled it was time to go, he had humoured me enough. So here's a potluck shot from my buckshie wee phone, a shot where I popped the solar glasses in front of the phone lens, and a snap from the timelapse when I was trying to shoo Thumper down.

Happy eclipse day.