Rahul Singh has been photographing the animals in front of his home in Jalpaiguri, India. His greatest affection is for the colorful birds that have established homes all around his city. In August of last year, he noticed something unexpected.
“I went to an area where there were bushes of these ornamental bananas to snap pictures of sunbirds drinking nectar from them,” Singh said.
One day, he was astonished to see the red sunbird begin to bathe in the water contained in the banana blossom petal. Once the red sunbird had consumed all of the nectar, she began to use the petal as a bathtub.
In all the years Singh had been observing birds, he had never seen anything like that. I was honestly surprised to see this strange behavior, “said Singh.” As the bird bathed, I kept pressing the camera’s shutter button. Singh was ecstatic to have seen the scene, which appeared to have been plucked from a book.
The 4-inch songbird wasn’t ready to allow the early-morning precipitation from the red banana flower go to waste on such a scorching day. It had collected on a petal that resembled a bowl. The red sunbird started using the petal as a bathtub as soon as she finished the nectar.
Singh was ecstatic to have witnessed the sight, which appeared to have sprung right out of a storybook. He later uploaded the images on Instagram, where hundreds of others saw them and were affected by them.
According to Singh, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It’s amazing how nature can surprise us.
