Why is there a circular bite out of all the shadows?

Chris Esten took this photo of a hummingbird in front of unusual eclipse shadows on the side of his house.

There was a solar eclipse visible in Tehachapi on May 20, 2012, and some Tehachapi residents took photos of the event. Chris Esten took a photo of unusual crescent-shaped shadows caused by the solar eclipse that began at about 5:30 p.m.

On that afternoon, Chris and his wife Kerri were at their home in the Tehachapi Mountains and when checking out the eclipse, they enjoyed the distinctive shadows caused by the partially eclipsed sun as it was shining through small gaps between the leaves of trees.

During the brief period of totality when the sun is evenly obscured by the moon, with just a thin rim of light visible around the edges that is known as a "Circle of Fire" eclipse, the crescents of light may appear as complete circles. This strange phenomenon of dancing crescents, which move as the trees sway in the breeze, is only visible during eclipses.

Diana Fifer also took a photo on May 20 at about 6 p.m., of her husband surrounded by crescent-shaped lights that resulted from the solar eclipse that day. Near sundown, Diana and her husband noticed odd shadows on their white cargo trailer. Diana took this photo of her husband surrounded by the dancing lights, and enjoyed the "cowboy shadow" that he cast as well.

She thought that they had missed the eclipse until a week later when she was downloading photos, and it dawned on her that the odd shadows were caused by the eclipse as the sun was filtered through the leaves of a tree canopy – and then realized that they hadn't missed the eclipse that day in Tehachapi after all.