The Crimson Wing is the first film from Disney’s new natural history label, Disney Nature. It follows the life and struggles of a million-strong colony of pink flamingos in Lake Natron in northern Tanzania, which are threatened by plans for a new factory in the area.

Lake Natron is a salt lake located in northern Tanzania, close to the Kenyan border. It’s the only breeding area for the endangered lesser flamingos that live in Africa’s Great Rift valley.  Three-quarters of the world’s population of lesser flamingos live in breed in east Africa. Many depend on Lake Natron as a breeding site because food is plentiful, nesting sites abound and the lake is isolated and undisturbed. Lake Natron is one of the largest soda lakes in the Rift valley. Its eight saline lagoons provide an ideal habitat for the salt-loving micro organisms on which the flamingos feed.

When flamingo chicks are about a week old, they are able to leave the nest.

The film shows the life cycle of flamingos from the moment they hatch

Tentative first steps

At around two weeks, the chicks are grouped into creches.

Chicks arrive on shore from the mudflats

Three years ago the Indian conglomerate Tata Chemicals and the National Development Corporation (NDC), a Tanzanian government funding agency, put forward plans for a large scale industrial plant to extract soda ash from the lake. The proposed plant would pump 530 cubic metres of brine per hour and produce 500,000 tonnes of soda ash a year, used in glass making, pharmaceuticals, and washing powder. The plan was to site the 1.5km2 plant complex, which would be fully floodlit 24 hours a day, just 3km from the lake.

Life at Natron is tough for the flamingos, with many predators including jackals and hyenas threatening their daily survival.

Wing ritual is the final part of the flamingo’s courtship ritual

‘It’s an experiential film, not a conservation one. If there’s too much conservation the audience would be put off,’ explains co-director Leander Ward. ‘Our way of raising awareness was to make a beautiful, cinematic film. We wanted to focus more on nature’s inspirational power, rather than the minutiae of everything.’ The film is Disney’s first big-screen nature documentary in nearly half a century.  Anyone expecting a conventional documentary will be in for a surprise. It’s more about poetic images and music (provided by the British-based jazz and electronic ensemble The Cinematic Orchestra) than words (huskily narrated by Mariella Frostrup), more attune to arthouse films like Baraka than Attenborough.

Sources: Guardian.co.uk and Laura Sevier, Green Living Editor “The Ecologist“

Below is the trailer which is simply gorgeous, moving with excellent vocals by The Cinematic Orchestra – To Build a Home, ‘Ma Fleur’, the singer is Patrick Watson.