Bathing Beauties

There are few things cuter than a bird taking a bath, whether the bird is a Cooper's Hawk standing in the middle of a stream soaking his feet and fluffing now and then, or a Rufous-tailed Hummingbird sitting on a twig with his bill pointing up into a rainstorm.

The dry season here in Panamá is coming to a close, but we still have many days without a drop of rain. On the dry days, whenever we water plants in the yard, the birds seem joyful about their bath time, so we make a point of drenching the large leaves of the Dracaena ("corn plant") and banana trees for the bathers. Marco's video below shows some Red-legged Honeycreepers using leaves on a banana tree as water slides: