The Sun-Warmers

India · nature

Crocodiles haul out onto warm red sandstone at the edge of a slow river. A line of ancient patience, recharging in the sun.

Crocodiles are solar-powered. They spend the cool hours of morning hauled out on the warmest available surface, mouths often slightly open to vent heat, eyes half-closed but never entirely so. They look like sculpture, and that's exactly what they want you to think.

This stretch of red sandstone slope down to a slow river had become a regular basking spot for three or four animals. They had organised themselves the way cats do on a sunny bench — bodies overlapping at angles, no apparent communication, perfectly arranged. I shot from the bank above, careful not to break the line of sight a snout was holding on the water. Crocodiles don't object to being photographed. They object to being startled. There's an important difference.

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