AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) – On Monday the eclipse will darken the sky and with that, animals will have to adjust.

“A lot of times you’ll see animals affected. The daytime animals will think, you know, ‘OK, it’s time for bed time, time to nest.’ You’ll see that affect a lot of birds. With animals that are nocturnal, the instinct is to step up and be like, ‘Ok, let’s start the night time routine, time to go look for food,’ or to move from their dens,” said Jessica Hammons, team lead & rehabber at Wild West Wildlife Rehabilitation Center.

Wild West Wildlife Rehabilitation Center says nocturnal animals will become more active while birds become quiet.

Volunteer and rehabber Christy Rowley says it’s kind of neat to see their natural predisposition to do things come out during that time.

“It’s really kind of a neat phenomenon and it’s something you don’t really think about as you start getting excited about the eclipse until somebody brings it up to you and you think, we understand what’s going on with the eclipse but animals, everything is instinctual and so for them, their instinct tells them it’s time to bed down when it gets dark and it can confuse them,” said Rowley.

Rehabbers says this is all instinctual for the animals and they will be able to adjust quickly to the changing environment.

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