In the movie, ‘Hachiko, A Dog’s story’, there is a scene where Hachi is watching the lady of the house while she tends to the garden. The camera shows us the scene from his eyes. Hachi then rolls over on to his back and the camera also rolls showing the viewer how the view has changed, everything looks upside down. It struck me then, how different everything must look when you do this sort of thing. It puts a totally different perspective on things that we otherwise see only in the staid ‘normal’, and may I add boring, way. Not that I tried it myself, though I would have loved to liven things up a bit, being too old for that kind of thing. Goodbye flexibility, hello rigidity is the tagline now. Of course that applies to the stiff body only, the mind is as nimble and agile an acrobat as ever, like the birds below.

Sometimes it is in the search of food that the birds resort to the upside down position, like the Chestnut-tailed Starling and the Purple-rumped Sunbird.

At other times it is because they aim to be the next Nadia Comeneci of the Bird World, scoring a perfect 10 in the coming Bird Olympics, like this White-cheeked Barbet or the Rufous Treepie.

Then there are times when romance sets the tone for the upside down swing, first the hero, then the heroine, take turns on the vine and sing songs, a la Bollywood style, like this Loten’s Sunbird couple.

What the birds can do, I can do even better, says the not-yet-one-year-old Luci in this picture clicked by Ashwathy when she came home to meet her. You didn’t think she came to meet me, do you?!

I don’t know where Luci has tucked away her other ear, but isn’t she too cute for words? Thanks for the click, Ashwathy 🙂