Flamingos

[JoCannon]

There was a BBC documentary years ago about flamingos.... The young flamingos had to learn to fly before their legs got weighed down with too much clay from the swamp... not all of them made it and some ended up earth-bound with great chunks of clay set around their ankles. It was heartbreaking. All the other adult flamingos flew/walked off to migrate and left the baby flamingos behind, shackled.

There were a lot of gratuitous shots of the solitary baby flamingos, slowly wading though the mud, with big buoys of clay on their sticky legs... slowly dying.
BUT at the end of the documentary, the TV crew popped one particular baby flamingo onto the back of their van, cleaned its legs and reunited it with the other flamingos. It was such an amazing sight seeing this little flamingo zooming across the sand in the back of a truck, looking around in awe.
Did anyone see it? Do you know where I could get a copy of it? It was a good 10 years ago, and it was on the BBC.

[gary baldy]

Yes i did see it! The crew were in a real dilemma because it breaks all the rules of nature film making - you should never get involved. I am a cold hearted s o b when it comes to animals but even eye was misty eyed watching that.
Wasnt it part of the Life of Birds series? I would be very surprised if it isnt available.

[gary baldy]

Its only 27 pound on amazon - which is good because it was a 10 part series. I suppose you could rent it first to see if it is the right programme but i'm sure it is.

[Glossopswift]

This was a sad one wasn�t it? I am usually able to watch wildlife stuff without getting attached to animals but this one did make me feel for the little pink guys. If I remember rightly it was soda that encrusted their legs, not clay. This might change the results of a Google search.