Once upon a time,
in the heart of Africa,
there was a lake of fire.
The lake's water burned
with color,
scarlet and crimson,
and in its stillness,
held heaven's reflection.
After months without rain,
there came a season of drought.
And the lake dried
and turned white as ash.
But in the desolation came
the promise of another season.
A season of color and life,
a season of beginning.
Lake Natron,
in northern Tanzania,
lies at the very center
of East Africa's Great Rift Valley.
This is a raw and unfinished land.
Ol Doinyo Lengai rises from
the lake's southern shore,
a living volcano,
restless and impatient.
Hidden deep in its dark core,
a chamber of magma burns
with primeval energy.
For the local Masai tribe,
Lengai is simply where God lives.
Natron is a vast, shallow lake,
and no more than six feet deep
and so toxic with soda salt that
almost nothing can live in its water.
But each year,
For only a few weeks,
rain comes to Natron...
...and a grand act
of creation takes place,
one of Africa's last great mysteries.
And with the rain come the flamingos.
Somehow, they know the time
has come to return to Natron.
They have abandoned a dozen other
lakes along the Rift Valley
and flown hundreds, even
thousands, of miles to be here.
Each bird has its own story,
its own secret life.
And each story is one that
began here at Natron,
with the rain.
The rain triggers the growth
of algae in the water.
When the flamingos eat
the algae, they transform.
Their feathers, eyes and legs
flush with crimson.
It is their color they find
most attractive about each other.
After all, this is why
they have come to Natron,
to find a mate.
Slowly, almost politely, they begin.
Every movement, part of a courtship.
A choreography.
A growing dervish of desire.
One by one,
the flamingos find each other.
A pairing to last the season.
A pairing that begins
with a moment.
There is a myth told by the Masai
that the flamingos are made
from the water's salt.
That they are the children
Of the lake.
But the truth is no less extraordinary,
and something that
only happens here at Natron.
A secret island emerges
from the middle of the lake.
As the rainy season ends
and the furnace sun
resumes its rule,
Water evaporates so quickly
that a residue of salt
forms on the surface.
Each day, the sun bears down
and the salt thickens into sheets,
like plates of salt ice that
shift and grind in the wind.
The sheets drift,
blending into a series
of small islands as they go.
The wind pushes the islands
towards the center of the lake.
After several weeks
of intense evaporation,
the water in the center of the
lake is only a few inches deep.
The floating salt islands run
aground on the emerging mud
and soon accumulate
into a single island of salt,
ten miles wide.
Here, remnant water congeals
into sulfurous pools,
and the temperature regularly
rises above 130 degrees.
No land animal could travel
Or survive here.
But to the flamingos,
this strange, new world
is a gift.
There are two million lesser
flamingos in East Africa,
and every one of them is born here
on Natron's secret salt island.
The expectant parents build their nests
from the salty lake mud.
Even though the salt island is vast,
as social birds, the flamingos prefer
to group closely together
and define the boundaries
of their chosen nest sites.
The nests are almost a foot high,
Drier and a few degrees cooler
than the floor of the salt island.
The salt bakes, bleaches
and hardens into a cradle.
After the nest, comes the egg.
And then, there
is nothing to do but wait...
...for one, long, hot month.
Finally, a small
but determined beginning.
A new life,
one that will start today,
and might, if she's lucky,
last for 40 years.
A whole new story.
Her very first cries are unique.
This is her own voice,
and how she and her parents
will always be able
to recognize each other.
Within a few hours,
Her down dries in the hot sun,
and she tries to stand.
Something that will take
only a little more practice.
Then it's time for food,
a high-energy liquid
made from the lake's algae,
but also containing traces
of her parent's own blood.
For these first days,
she has the constant presence
of one or other of her parents.
This is a time of bonding
and intimacy.
The dark hollow
Under her mother's wing
is a favorite place to hide
from the fierce sun.
While still small, the chicks
stay in their parent's shadows
Or on their nest mounds.
Anything to stay cool.
At about a week old,
her legs are strong enough,
and, with a little encouragement,
she decides to leave the nest.
Her world expands,
one unsteady step at a time.
Now that she can walk,
Her relationship with her parents
will become more and more
about separation.
Like every other chick,
Her inclination is to be with others.
The comfort and familiarity of her kind.
For a life that is not so much
about the individual,
but a collective.
Up to half a million adults and chicks
live in this season's noisy
and boisterous nursery.
But the island can also
be harsh and unkind.
An impermanent place of salt
and extreme heat.
When the chicks walk through
the puddles of thick, salty water
that are all around, a thin band of salt
sometimes forms on their ankles.
lf it does or not
seems a matter of luck.
But the more these chicks
wade into the water,
the more the salt accumulates
and hardens into a cement shackle
that cannot be broken.
High above the colonies,
the marabou storks appear,
circling like storybook witches.
They have come
from far beyond the lake
with their own mysterious knowledge
of what happens at Natron.
Very quickly...
...their intentions become clear.
Almost insatiable, a few marabous
can kill hundreds of chicks,
scattering and scaring off the parents.
With their gentle, curved beaks,
the flamingos are no match
for the marabous.
But every once in a while,
a parent wins a reprieve
for her chick.
One day, the chicks
have had enough.
Perhaps some instinct
tells them of a better place.
Somewhere beyond the salt.
Suddenly,
in their hundreds of thousands,
they abandon their nursery.
Guardian birds lead them away
and out across the miles
of the salt island,
perhaps on routes they took themselves
when they were chicks.
But there are those
who are left behind,
too weak or too injured
to make the journey.
Stories that barely began.
Each day, the surviving chicks
continue on across the burning miles.
Though they are reunited each evening
with their parents for rest and food,
it is the guardian birds
who lead this daytime march
and make sure even the smallest
find their way.
But the group can't wait for everyone.
The chicks burdened with salt shackles
fall further and further behind.
But, for the hundreds of chicks who die,
thousands will make it.
How far they've come.
The groups merge
and gather momentum
as if, at last,
they sense the destination.
And, reaching the edge
Of the salt island,
find the lake
with its cool, blue water.
And she has made it, too.
Cautiously at first...
...but then...
...up ahead...
...there are the others.
Leaving the salt island,
the chicks enter
the wider kingdom of the lake.
Here, a very different world
awaits them.
A living landscape,
complex and animate.
The Rift's escarpment rises
a thousand feet above the lake,
a rock wall severed
by deep canyons.
Here, amid the shadows
and the swifts,
Water gushes out from hundreds
of underground springs.
The water is rich
in sodium carbonate,
a mineral that creates the
salty chemistry of the lake.
Dozens of springs and rivers
feed into a series of marshes
that border the lake.
Almost all of Natron's life
depends upon the relatively fresh water
of this abundant green maze.
And, for the next few months,
so too will the chicks.
Each morning,
the parents leave their chicks
on the muddy shore
below the marsh.
They spend the day almost
completely unsupervised.
They learn to feed themselves.
Their beaks are developing the
filters and distinctive shape
that will allow them to separate the
algae they need from the mud and silt
Of the marsh.
Her super soft down
is the perfect insulation
against the strong sun.
But it requires frequent grooming,
not only to keep it healthy, but to
encourage the growth of adult feathers.
Without those feathers, she can't fly.
No matter how hard she tries.
There are plenty of things
to want to fly away from.
The mongoose that lives
in the marsh, for instance.
As the chicks change and grow,
life in the marsh goes on.
Routine, yet quietly full of wonder.
At three months old,
she has grown more sure of herself
and her place in the marsh.
Now, her down has transformed
into a juvenile plumage.
And one by one,
Her wing feathers have fledged.
The day comes when she discovers
Her wings are strong enough,
and a whole new way of being
is suddenly possible.
A flight that at first stays
close to the lake and the marsh,
the familiar places
of her life.
But a flight that
will soon release her
above the earth, above
everything she has known.
No longer a chick,
but a young bird
whose wings have given her
the whole Rift Valley.
Every 30 years, Lengai erupts.
Deep in the volcano's molten core,
lava is pulverized by pressure
into ash and thrown upward
into the air.
The ash contains sodium carbonate,
the exact mineral
in the lake's water and soil.
It is as if each aspect
of the lake's landscape
is simply a different form.
A different incarnation
Of the same basic element.
Natron is one place,
water, earth and air.
And the flamingos born
on the lake's salt island,
transformed by its salt water,
embody Natron in a living form.
The flamingo's ceaseless journeys
among the many lakes of the Rift Valley
are nomadic rather than migratory.
For the flamingos
move of their own accord.
Natron, Bogoria, Embakai.
Magadi, Nakuru, Manyara.
They come and go as they want.
Their presence, the sudden
and complete possession of a lake.
But every lake has
its storybook witches.
This time, she keeps her story.
She keeps her secret life.
Just as they arrived at Natron,
like a magic act, the flamingos
suddenly disappear.
Born of salt, they possess the sky,
they absorb the color of the water
and their feathers
burnish crimson as the phoenix.
Their lives are
continual transformation.
And even in death, their forms shift
to something other.
Their feathers, bones, color,
their life force returned
to the lake.
As the seasons change, microscopic life
in the water blooms.
Natron becomes a lake of fire.
After six months without
a single drop of rain,
the color fades and bleaches.
The ash of the volcano blends
with the salt of the lake
and the dust of the earth,
scattering in the
restless dry season wind.
Natron's elements shape-shift,
one into the other.
Ash, dust and salt.
But even this season
of silence will pass.
The story of the bird
is a promise to us.
Nature's affirmation.
In winter or in death,
in times of desolation,
the rain will arrive.
The call of the birds will be heard.
And everything,
everything can begin again.
Lightning bird.
Fire bird. Phoenix.
She will return on crimson wings
and make a nest among the ashes.
And the children of the lake
will be reborn.
Once upon a time,
in the heart of Africa,
there was a lake of fire.