Watching birds during the 2026 solar eclipse in Cadiz
Updated: Aug 14
On 12 August 2026, while thousands of people across Spain went outside to watch one of the most anticipated astronomical events of the year, my attention was directed somewhere slightly different. Instead of concentrating entirely on the movements of the sun and the moon, I wanted to see what the birds would do during the solar eclipse.
Astronomy is definitely not my speciality. I am much more comfortable trying to identify a distant wader than photographing the sun or anything else in our solar system. But an eclipse offered a rare opportunity: for a short period in the evening, daylight would suddenly fade and then partially return, shortly before the real sunset. How would the birds react?
Choosing a place to watch the eclipse
Finding the right location was not as straightforward as I had expected. I wanted an open landscape with plenty of birds, a clear view towards the western sky and, ideally, some possibilities for photography.
Eventually I decided on the Salinas de Santa María de Jesús in Chiclana de la Frontera.
To be somewhat prepared, I visited the saltpans two days before the eclipse. This was partly a birdwatching trip, but also a rehearsal. I wanted to know where the sun would disappear behind the horizon and where the birds were likely to be at that time of the evening.
There were plenty of birds around, including large numbers of godwits and Greater Flamingos. Eventually I found a promising position relatively close to a flock of flamingos and waited patiently for sunset.
I already had several dream photographs in mind. One was a Greater Flamingo standing or wading in the foreground, silhouetted or backlit by the partially eclipsed sun. Another was perhaps even more difficult: the silhouette of a flying bird passing right across the eclipsed sun. Either would make me very happy.
In practice, I knew that getting such an image would be extremely difficult, if not almost impossible. The position of the bird, the sun and the photographer would all have to line up at exactly the right moment. A flamingo only has to take a few steps for the composition to disappear completely, while a flying bird might give you only a fraction of a second. Exposure would be another challenge when trying to combine an extremely bright part of the sky with a bird in the foreground. Nevertheless, the rehearsal was useful.
As evening approached, I noticed another interesting pattern. Small groups of gulls began leaving the saltpans, presumably heading towards their nighttime roosts. The flamingos behaved differently. Many remained in the saltpans, which they also use for roosting.
I managed to take some photographs that I was quite happy with, but the evening confirmed something else: getting one of the photographs I had in mind during the eclipse was going to require a considerable amount of luck. And then other participants arrived: mosquitoes.
As soon as it became noticeably darker, large numbers suddenly appeared and started attacking me. That left me wondering about another consequence of the eclipse. If fading evening light triggered mosquito activity, would I experience two mosquito attacks two days later—one during the eclipse and another during the real sunset?
Eclipse evening in the saltpans
On the evening of 12 August, I arrived with plenty of time to spare. Even after my reconnaissance visit, choosing the exact position was difficult. One area had godwits, Greater Flamingos, gulls and Black-winged Stilts together, which was tempting.
But after walking around for a while, I eventually found what seemed like the best compromise. It was a dike running between two shallow saltpans. There was a small group of flamingos on either side. Looking in one direction, I could photograph the birds in the soft evening light. Looking the other way, they were backlit by the setting sun. Now I only needed the birds, the moon and the sun to cooperate.
In Chiclana, the partial eclipse began at approximately 19:43, with maximum eclipse at about 20:39. At maximum eclipse, the moon covered approximately 93% of the sun’s visible surface. At first, very little seemed to happen. The moon slowly began moving across the sun and the light gradually changed.
One thing that surprised me when looking through the special eclipse glasses was just how small the sun actually appeared. Normally, when we see the bright sun in the sky—without of course staring directly at it—it somehow feels like a huge ball of fire dominating the scene. Through the dark solar glasses, with all the surrounding glare removed, it suddenly looked like a surprisingly small, sharply defined disc. It was an interesting reminder of how much our perception of the sun is influenced by its incredible brightness.
But as the eclipse progressed and the light started to fade more noticeably, something familiar happened. The birds began making many of the same movements I had watched two evenings earlier. That was perhaps the most interesting part of the entire experience. From my position, it did not look as if the birds were reacting to some mysterious astronomical event. Their behaviour looked much more like a response to an environmental signal they experience every evening: decreasing light. Scientific observations during previous eclipses have shown that some birds reduce their vocal activity, stop daytime activities or begin behaviours associated with dusk and roosting. However, the response is far from universal. Different species can react very differently, and a partial eclipse may not produce anything like the behavioural response seen during totality. That distinction turned out to be especially relevant in Cadiz.
Why wasn't it darker?
Watching the eclipse itself through proper eclipse glasses was fascinating. Seeing the moon covering such a large part of the sun is something completely outside my normal experience in nature. But I have to admit that I was also slightly disappointed. I had expected it to become considerably darker.
I knew beforehand that Cadiz was outside the path of totality, but with the moon covering almost the complete diameter of the sun, I had imagined something much closer to twilight. Instead, there was still a surprising amount of daylight. That makes more sense when you realise that even a small uncovered portion of the sun remains extraordinarily bright. Our eyes also adapt to changing light levels remarkably well, so the landscape can continue to appear much brighter than you might expect from looking at diagrams showing almost the entire solar disc covered.
For the birds, therefore, this was certainly not the same as suddenly experiencing complete darkness in the middle of the day.
Photographing birds with an eclipse
Even without the dramatic darkness I had imagined, the evening produced some interesting photographic opportunities. I never managed to create either of the perfect photographs that had been in my head during the previous days: a beautifully positioned flamingo directly below or in front of the eclipsed sun, or the clean silhouette of a flying bird crossing the solar disc. Those photos required too many things to happen simultaneously.
But I did manage to photograph birds apparently flying very close to the eclipse—at least from the perspective created in the photographs. With a long focal length, birds that are actually a considerable distance from the sun's line of sight can appear surprisingly close to it in a two-dimensional image. In some ways, those less-perfect photographs probably represent the evening better than the dream image would have done. I had gone there primarily to see what the birds would do, rather than simply to photograph the eclipse.
Did the birds think night had arrived?
Around maximum eclipse, bird activity had changed noticeably. Some birds had apparently already started moving towards their roosting areas, much as they had done at the equivalent stage of the normal sunset two days earlier. Then, as the eclipse passed maximum and the amount of daylight slowly began increasing again, I started hearing more bird calls. What I did not notice was an obvious return of the birds that had already left.
That actually makes sense. There were only about forty minutes between maximum eclipse and the real sunset. A gull that had already flown towards its roost would have had little reason to turn around, return to the saltpans for such a short period and then make the same journey again.
Of course, that is only my interpretation of what I observed rather than a controlled scientific experiment. But it is exactly this kind of behaviour that made watching the eclipse from a birdwatcher's perspective so interesting.
Photographing the eclipse without a solar filter
For this eclipse I did not use a special solar filter on my camera. My photographic objective was not to point a telephoto lens directly at the sun and photograph the solar disc in detail. I was photographing birds and the surrounding landscape, sometimes with the low evening sun included as part of a much wider composition. I also deliberately avoided looking directly at the sun through the camera or including it in the image for prolonged periods.
Because the sun was already low above the horizon and because of the way I was photographing it, I personally considered the risk to my equipment to be relatively small. During the entire evening I never had the feeling that either my eyes or my camera gear were at risk.
That does not, however, mean that photographing a partial solar eclipse without a filter is generally risk-free. Official safety advice is much more cautious: it is highly recommended to use a proper solar filter over the front of the lens when photographing the partially eclipsed sun, particularly when the sun itself is the photographic subject.
And the most important rule concerns your eyes: never look directly at the bright sun without proper solar viewing protection, and never look at it through an optical viewfinder, binoculars or a telephoto lens without the appropriate solar filter. Magnifying optics can concentrate sunlight and cause severe eye injury. For ordinary wider landscape compositions that happen to include a low Sun, photographers may make their own assessment of the conditions and equipment they are using. But an eclipse is certainly not a reason to forget normal precautions simply because part of the sun is hidden by the moon.
Next year should be very different
Fortunately, I will not have to wait long for another opportunity. On 2 August 2027, another solar eclipse will cross southern Spain. Almost all of the province of Cadiz will lie inside the path of totality, and unlike the 2026 eclipse, it will take place in the morning, at around 10:45–10:50.
That should make the experience completely different. Instead of a partial eclipse taking place shortly before sunset, birds in the path of totality will suddenly experience genuine darkness during the morning. For someone interested in bird behaviour, that may actually be even more exciting than the astronomical spectacle itself.
Where I will photograph it is another question entirely. The sun will be in a completely different part of the sky and at a very different elevation, so the location that worked this year may not be useful at all. Before August 2027, I will have to study the position of the sun, possible foregrounds and, most importantly, where the birds are likely to be. And I still don't know what my ideal photograph will be. Perhaps a Greater Flamingo wading through shallow water beneath the eclipsed sun. Perhaps the silhouette of a bird flying directly across it. Or perhaps a White Stork will appear in exactly the right place at exactly the right moment.
The 2026 eclipse taught me several things—not only about the birds, but also about how difficult it is to combine wildlife photography with an astronomical event. Next year the eclipse itself should be far more spectacular. The challenge will be finding the right place, the right birds and the right composition before the lights suddenly go out.
Comments