Dark skies and silent birds - what happens during a solar eclipse?

Pallab GhoshScience correspondent, reporting from Burgos, northern Spain The light changes first: flatter, cooler, as if the colour has drained from the day. Through eclipse glasses, you can see the Moon keeps taking bites from the Sun. Then, in the last seconds, tiny sparks of sunlight flare through lunar valleys — the diamond ring effect — and abruptly, the magic moment of totality. The moon completely blocks the Sun’s bright disc – and a new object hangs in the heavens in their place - like a