On April 8, the Great Eclipse will plunge parts of the United States into darkness, and animal experts expect the behavior of wildlife could slightly change."You're going to see a decrease, markedly, in songbird activity," predicted Nicole Baker, the biologist at the Wild Center in Tupper Lake, New York.In an interview with NBC5 News, Baker explained the total eclipse will likely mean different things for different wild animals."Some of the behaviors we're going to be hoping to look out for are going to be how they respond to, really, the changing light," Baker noted.Baker said certain mammals that are normally most active at night, like porcupines, may start to stir somewhat in the afternoon of April 8 as light dims. Similarly, she said you may see more movement and foraging midday that day from animals that are typically busiest at dawn and dusk, like moose or deer. The biologist at the Wild Center, which recently topped the list of national science centers in USA Today's 10 Best Readers' Choice Awards for 2024, said she expects some changes to animal sounds. She pointed to frogs' distinctive mating calls, for example, which we hear in the evening in spring. Those could come much earlier, due to darkness, Baker said."As the solar eclipse is having its onset, we might hear frog calls in April because some of those amphibians are going to be active and thinking, 'Hmm, the sun's setting a little earlier and it's springtime,'" Baker said of the mating calls.Naturalist Bridget Butler, known as the Bird Diva, hosts birding outings and education events in Vermont. She told sister station NBC5 News that during previous total eclipses elsewhere, people have noticed shifts in when birds roost in trees, thinking it's night. Birders have also documented changes in the altitudes at which bug-hunting birds fly during eclipses, Butler said. She added that during previous eclipses, birders have heard calls in the daytime from birds that usually hoot at night, namely owls. "There's so much to notice," Butler said in an interview with sister station NBC5 News, adding how the American woodcock's spiraling display to attract mates could come earlier than its normal early evening time. "Will the American woodcock start its aerial display courtship calls earlier, because they're going to have this feeling like, 'Oh, it's end of day. It's time for me to do my boogie and get down?'"Butler is urging people to study their surroundings now, so they'll be better attuned to possible changes in local birds on the day of the eclipse."Pay attention to those patterns on a normal day," Butler advised. "And then, when you're enjoying the eclipse day, see what you can notice in terms of behavior changes for the birds that are around you."Baker and Butler both said one of the most exciting things about the Great Eclipse to them is how it could turn everyday people into citizen scientists. They recommended sharing observations of wildlife during the eclipse with iNaturalist or the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's eBird project.When you share what you see with those databases of observations, Baker and Butler said, the information helps advance scientists' understanding of the natural world.