The Eclipse Within Our Grasp

Find yours among the coronas burning here on Earth

The heavens hold no exclusivity on an eclipse. A corona circles the eye of a tropical bird. It burns on the wing of a butterfly. It even glows on a rodent.

For those of you who won’t get to see the total solar eclipse on Monday, I bring you earthly coronas instead, each a ring of fire, a totality of the wild.

Various birds display feathered eye-rings or fleshy orbital rings — coronas of ornamentation or perhaps eye protection.

A group of tiny butterflies called “blues” offer galaxies of nano-eclipses — halos surrounding black discs — on the underside of their wings.

The eye of an American Red Squirrel resembles a total eclipse with a wide, white corona. Even a caterpillar can leave behind rings of fire.

It all serves to remind us that we need not look solely to the heavens for moments of transcendence. The music of the spheres, a harmonic convergence, a total solar eclipse — they are here as well within our grasp.

Bird’s-Eye Coronas

Least Flycatcher, Elegant Trogon, Black-bellied Whistling Duck / © Bryan Pfeiffer

Butterfly Wing Eclipses

Clockwise: Crowberry Blue (Plebejus idas empetri), Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus), a male Silvery Blue (Glaucopsyche lygdamus) courting a (disinterested) female. / © Bryan Pfeiffer

A Rodent and a Leaf

American Red Squirrel and the leaf-mining rings made by the feeding caterpillar of Maple Leafcutter Moth (Paraclemensia acerifoliella) / © Bryan Pfeiffer

Corona image above courtesy of NASA; the rest are mine.