So many describe the eclipse as an awe-inspiring experience that I just have to contemplate why. There is a focus on the silence, the anticipation, the sense of being in a special moment of time. Even some nonmystical friends seem to have been affected.
Here's my suggestion. The birds stopped singing because they are programmed to only sing in specific modes of light. Therefore it was oddly silent. That's it. Everything else you are imagining is significant because of primitive man or our relationship to the heavens or whatever is just stuff you are adding in on your own. It's just birds noticing that the lights have been turned off, and they don't sing at night.
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In 2017 we were near the path of totality, so I took the day off and so did my wife, we took our son out of school, and we went to see it. It was a nice day, we saw something you don't see every day, and we had a pleasant lunch in a little mountain town afterwards.
All in all, a pretty special day. I don't remember if the birds sang or not.
Heh. We were in the woods, but easily within earshot of the park proper, and the oohs and ahhs and wows were anything but quiet. And there's something dramatically different from viewing the land and the Sun at 50%, 90%, even 99%--and at 100%. Your eyes adjust amazingly well, and even only 1% of the Sun is amazingly bright. And then suddenly it's not and things you never see appear.
2017, I attended a backyard party in the path of totality and it was amazing. There were several children there of the age that parental help was needed to make sure the sunglasses were in place, thus no total silence... and adults took turns staying with those children inside. It was the crickets we noticed... they apparently thought it was time to start singing.
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