Found myself really impressed by 'The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingo' when watching it a few weeks ago. Many people said that DisneyNature's first documentary was a must watch and being someone who likes flamingos a lot (some gorgeous ones at my local zoo) and wanted to know more about these too often under-explored animals there was no chance of missing 'The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingo'.

The DisneyNature documentaries vary in quality, while not caring for 'Elephant' and 'Born in China' 'Earth' and 'Oceans' for instances are outstanding. Still, the overall effect is breathtaking and if you see it, try to see it on as large a TV as possible. Also, biologists might dislike how the narration often becomes much too prosaic and not exactly scientific. My only reservations are that kids might be a bit shook up because nature is pitiless and you see a lot of flamingos die. It's all quite lovely with nice cinematography yet Disney chose not to release this to theaters-though it would have been lovely to see on the giant screen.

The film follows the flamingos for a year-as the return to do their courtship rituals, lay and hatch eggs and then grow into adulthood. However, surprisingly, 2.5 million flamingos return to Lake Natron each year-despite it having a pH of 10.5 and being made up of a mixture of ash and salt. Instead of the usual locations like jungles or plains, this one is filmed in the most hellish place in Tanzania-near the Kenyan border in a region made toxic to most life by volcanic ash.

This is the first of a new generation of nature documentaries from Disney and they picked a VERY difficult topic to cover.

What does lake natron look like