The pleasures of communal bathing

Several years ago Eden and I bought a miniature water lily in Tesco. It came with the aquatic compost and a shallow ceramic bowl so when we got home we planted it, filled the bowl with water and waited.
We had lots of leaves for the first two years, but no flower. On hot summer days when I came home from work I would go out to water my plants and I used to find mud splashed all over the patio and also the plants round the edge of the patio and there would be hardly any water left in the bowl. I knew it must be the sparrows so the following year I bought a large tub and re-planted the water lily with a couple of other pond plants and some oxygenating weed.
The sparrows have continued to use this to drink from and also for bathing even though I have a proper bird bath by the bird table. Squidge and his friends also use the tub to drink from when they come into the garden. The water lily has flowered too.
At the weekend I was a bit concerned when the sparrows, especially the young ones, were almost standing on their heads to drink because the water is about three inches below the top of the tub as that's where the inner liner starts and it's about twelve inches deep. Eden and I found a piece of wood and cut it to fit across the tub so that it was secure and safe and just above the water.
The sparrows usually sit all round the top of the tub where they get a shower when two or three take a bath by standing on the water lily leaves. As there are not that many leaves just yet, they were finding it quite hard to bathe so that's where the wood came in.
This afternoon was totally different. There they were after lunch, about eight around the top of the tub and another three on the piece of wood busily splashing about. They all take it in turns and the whole thing seems to be extremely well organised and all of them are very polite. Even a little blue tit turned up and waited patiently on a plant next to the tub until all the sparrows were finished. Then he too got on to the piece of wood and had his bath before sitting on the top of the fence to preen himself.
I now have very happy, clean birds in my garden!