Smithsonian magazine's 22nd Annual Photo Contest | Made possible through the support of MPB.com

21st Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Natural World
FLYING GHOST

: The Flying Ghost is the story of fruit bats. I live in a small town named Cooch Behar in West Bengal, India. Two years back one day after evening suddenly I saw some fruit bats flying around a fruit shop, near a busy market. It was dark enough after sunset. At that moment the camera was not with me. I hurriedly went to the shopkeeper and asked him, “Is it regular phenomenon?” The shopkeeper told me that these bats are annoying him for last 2 months. I saw the shopkeeper hung some bananas from the tin shed. Every day he hangs some bananas right next to the shop, so that the bats do not enter in the shop and eat different fruits, it may cause financial loss for him. The customers are also afraid of these flying ghosts. It is a big fruit shop. In day time there is no problem of these ghosts. But slowly when the darkness descends all over; all the bulbs of the shops lit up and the bats began to enter slowly. I have seen 5-7 bats at a time flying around and often they collide with people walking on the road. They fly at high speed, eat bananas from banana sticks and sometimes they even fight for their own. Next two days I observed the whole situation keenly. I have to plan how to photograph the whole thing with a point of view “Urban Wildlife”. I had to stand in the back of the store and I used two TTL flashes with triggers to manage the darkness. In this shot you can see a flying ghost flying towards banana and in the back a woman moving in rickshaw.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 10.2021
Date Uploaded: 11.2023
Photo Location: Cooch Behar, India
Camera: NIKON D500
Copyright: © ANIRBAN DUTTA