In tonight's bedtime story for kids, we're going to Tanzania, with birdwatching queen, Hannah Sparrow! On their adventure, she and her cousin, Robin, stumble across a beautiful lake, inhabited by two MILLION flamingos. Join them on their journey. Relax, get sleepy, and let's begin.
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The No1 kids bedtime stories & sleep meditations podcast that helps children sleep like a dream. Hosted by the world's biggest fan of bedtime stories, Abbe Opher! All episodes are safe for babies, children and really big kids 0 to 100, so settle down tonight and get sleepy with the world's greatest bedtime stories & sleep meditations for kids.
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Narrator 🎙 Abbe Opher
Author ✍️ Jane Thomas
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:10
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Koala Moon, a podcast of
00:00:14
Speaker 1: original children's bedtime stories and meditations designed to make bedtime
00:00:21
Speaker 1: a dream. Now you might recognize the main star of
00:00:25
Speaker 1: Tonight's story from our sister show, Koala Shine. She's Hannah Sparrow,
00:00:31
Speaker 1: our fierce and heroic bird watcher friend who knows her
00:00:34
Speaker 1: pigeons from her peregrines and her ballfinches from her buzzards.
00:00:39
Speaker 1: She's such a bird lover that she will travel across
00:00:41
Speaker 1: the world for a peep at a rare one. In fact,
00:00:45
Speaker 1: she's going all the way to Africa and Tonight's story
00:00:48
Speaker 1: hoping to come across some rare fines. But something she
00:00:52
Speaker 1: really doesn't expect to see is two million flamingos dancing
00:00:58
Speaker 1: across the lake where they were born. Yep. Soon, we're
00:01:02
Speaker 1: going to meet up with brilliant Hannah as she's about
00:01:05
Speaker 1: to go on holiday, and her lucky cousin Robin gets
00:01:08
Speaker 1: to come along too. So settle down into your bed,
00:01:13
Speaker 1: close your eyes. Imagine clouds of whirling, twirling birds changing
00:01:19
Speaker 1: direction on a whim and filling the skies with their calls.
00:01:25
Speaker 1: It's time to begin. Hannah Sparrow and the Flamingo Lake
00:01:30
Speaker 1: by Jane Thomas. Since she was a very little girl,
00:01:41
Speaker 1: just learning to walk on her own two feet, Hannah
00:01:44
Speaker 1: Sparrow has loved being a twitter, which is as you
00:01:48
Speaker 1: may or may not know, a person who loves watching birds.
00:01:53
Speaker 1: Hannah Sparrow has traveled around most of the world with
00:01:56
Speaker 1: her father, who has dedicated his life to finding the
00:01:59
Speaker 1: rarest and most beautiful birds. Hannah's mother has traveled around
00:02:04
Speaker 1: the world too, although she stays behind when her husband
00:02:08
Speaker 1: and daughter head off into the wilderness armed with their
00:02:11
Speaker 1: backpacks and binoculars. Hannah's mother has spent a lot of
00:02:16
Speaker 1: time in museums and admiring paintings in art galleries, and
00:02:21
Speaker 1: lazying on beaches and climbing to the tops of mountains.
00:02:25
Speaker 1: She thinks this is actually a rather wonderful way to
00:02:28
Speaker 1: be living her life, and is perfectly happy to have
00:02:32
Speaker 1: some time apart from the other two. For while Hannah's
00:02:36
Speaker 1: mother can look at a bird and think, oh, yes,
00:02:40
Speaker 1: very nice, indeed, very pretty, she doesn't have that burning
00:02:45
Speaker 1: desire to see each and every species the same way
00:02:49
Speaker 1: Hannah and her father do. They're all off on another
00:02:53
Speaker 1: trip soon, and this is a particularly special one. For Hannah,
00:02:58
Speaker 1: not only are they set to see something extraordinarily beautiful,
00:03:04
Speaker 1: she also gets to introduce her favorite cousin to twitching.
00:03:08
Speaker 1: He's also her least favorite cousin, come to that because
00:03:13
Speaker 1: he's her only cousin. But whichever way you look at it,
00:03:17
Speaker 1: she wouldn't change him for the world. Robin is six
00:03:21
Speaker 1: years older than Hannah, and she looks up to him
00:03:24
Speaker 1: in every possible way. Robin is, in her eyes, the smartest, funniest, kindest, fastest,
00:03:33
Speaker 1: and strongest boy there is. In turn, Robin thinks his
00:03:39
Speaker 1: little cousin, Hannah is one of the more wonderful people
00:03:42
Speaker 1: he's ever met. In his eyes, she is the smartest, funniest, kindest, fastest,
00:03:51
Speaker 1: and strongest girl there is. Admittedly, he thinks she's a
00:03:57
Speaker 1: little bit weird for always disappearing up trees and hiding
00:04:01
Speaker 1: behind rocks to get a better look at birds, But
00:04:05
Speaker 1: if that's the worst thing about her, then he'll gladly
00:04:08
Speaker 1: take it. Robin is also you should probably know, a
00:04:13
Speaker 1: bit of a joker. He's the sort of person who
00:04:17
Speaker 1: finds it hilarious to hide behind doors and then jump
00:04:21
Speaker 1: out of people as they come into a room, or
00:04:24
Speaker 1: make a special breakfast and then put a very lifelike
00:04:28
Speaker 1: rubber egg in the egg cut and watch people's faces
00:04:31
Speaker 1: as he pretends to drop the whole tray of food.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: This sort of thing can be good fun once in
00:04:37
Speaker 1: a while, but every hour of every day is a
00:04:41
Speaker 1: little bit exhausting, which is why Hannah's parents spoke to
00:04:45
Speaker 1: Robin's parents and offered to take Robin on holiday with
00:04:48
Speaker 1: them sometime. They needed, and there are no two ways
00:04:52
Speaker 1: about this. They needed a break. They wanted to lie
00:04:57
Speaker 1: in bed on a long and lazy morning and know
00:05:01
Speaker 1: that no mischief was being injured up in other corners
00:05:04
Speaker 1: of the house. They wanted to sit together on the
00:05:07
Speaker 1: sofa in the evening, snuggled up under a huge blanket,
00:05:12
Speaker 1: and watch their favorite movies and drink their favorite drinks
00:05:17
Speaker 1: without worrying that their darling boy would suddenly leap out
00:05:21
Speaker 1: from behind them. They wanted to stroll along a beach
00:05:27
Speaker 1: and not have the peace of the wind and the
00:05:30
Speaker 1: waves broken by Robin pretending to be snapped at by
00:05:35
Speaker 1: crabs or rushing up to cover them in long strands
00:05:38
Speaker 1: of slimy seaweed. Yes, Robin's parents needed a break, and
00:05:45
Speaker 1: so Hannah's parents agreed they would take him away with them.
00:05:49
Speaker 1: They did this on the firm understanding that Robin would
00:05:53
Speaker 1: join Hannah and her father on their bird watching trips
00:05:57
Speaker 1: because Hannah's mother quite liked the piece she found in
00:06:00
Speaker 1: art galleries and museums and people watching in cafes, thank
00:06:05
Speaker 1: you very much. All Hannah knew was she would get
00:06:09
Speaker 1: to spend time with the wonderful Robin, and she hoped,
00:06:13
Speaker 1: she really really hoped, that he would love twitching as
00:06:17
Speaker 1: much as she did. She saved up her pocket money
00:06:21
Speaker 1: for weeks so she could buy him his very own
00:06:24
Speaker 1: Birds of the World book, complete with a pen and
00:06:28
Speaker 1: a notebook so he could note down everything he saw.
00:06:33
Speaker 1: And while little Hannah Sparrow was carefully saving every single
00:06:38
Speaker 1: penny for this wonderful present for Robin, Robin was saving
00:06:43
Speaker 1: every penny of his pocket money to buy Hannah a
00:06:47
Speaker 1: tilli hat. He only knew about tilly hats because Hannah
00:06:52
Speaker 1: had talked about them for three weeks straight. She said
00:06:56
Speaker 1: they were absolutely the best hats to ate Africa because
00:07:02
Speaker 1: they were lightweight and had big white brims to keep
00:07:06
Speaker 1: the sun off, and they folded away neatly into the
00:07:09
Speaker 1: corner of your bag, and she told him with wide eyes,
00:07:15
Speaker 1: they can get eaten by an elephant and still be okay.
00:07:21
Speaker 1: She nodded solemnly. One of them was eaten by an
00:07:24
Speaker 1: elephant's tree whole times once, and each time the hat's
00:07:30
Speaker 1: owner found it, gave it a really good wash, and
00:07:33
Speaker 1: then popped it back on his head. Any hat that
00:07:37
Speaker 1: can be eaten by an elephant and still be okay
00:07:41
Speaker 1: is the hat to wear in Africa. Hannah had made
00:07:46
Speaker 1: a very good argument, and Robin had decided that the
00:07:50
Speaker 1: least he could do was get her the hat. He
00:07:54
Speaker 1: was getting an entire trip to Africa, after all, so
00:07:58
Speaker 1: it was a pretty good deal. More specifically, they were
00:08:04
Speaker 1: going to Tanzania. This is a country on the east
00:08:08
Speaker 1: coast of Africa, a little bit more than halfway down
00:08:12
Speaker 1: the continent. For a country that uses up an entire
00:08:17
Speaker 1: side of itself along the coast, miles and miles of golden,
00:08:22
Speaker 1: glorious sand beaches spilling into the Indian Ocean, it somehow
00:08:27
Speaker 1: manages to get eight other countries on its border to
00:08:31
Speaker 1: the north west and south. Here's another fun fact about Tanzania,
00:08:37
Speaker 1: thanks in large part in nearly a third of it
00:08:40
Speaker 1: being protected national parks. It has more animals per square
00:08:44
Speaker 1: mile than anywhere else in the world, and it has
00:08:50
Speaker 1: the world's only tree climbing lions. Tanzania is dotted with
00:08:57
Speaker 1: thousand year old baobab trees, water falls that seem to
00:09:01
Speaker 1: fall from impossible heights, and it is home to the
00:09:05
Speaker 1: highest mountain in Africa. Mount Kilimanjaro, stretches so far into
00:09:11
Speaker 1: the sky that it has a cap of snow, and
00:09:15
Speaker 1: its name, in one of the hundred local languages, means
00:09:19
Speaker 1: mountain of shining whiteness. Many people go to Tanzanier every
00:09:25
Speaker 1: year to climb the mountain, but not Hannah Sparrow. No,
00:09:31
Speaker 1: she's off somewhere very different, indeed. But before they can
00:09:36
Speaker 1: get there, first there's the chaos of packing and sitting
00:09:40
Speaker 1: on suitcases and taking things out and putting different things in.
00:09:46
Speaker 1: Then came the realization the really important pair of hiking
00:09:51
Speaker 1: boots are missing, so even more stuff has to come
00:09:56
Speaker 1: out for them to be squeezed into the bag. Then
00:09:59
Speaker 1: they're the skillful game of trying to get all the
00:10:03
Speaker 1: suitcases into the back of the car, trying one on
00:10:07
Speaker 1: the left and then one on the right, and eventually
00:10:11
Speaker 1: giving up and just tying the biggest one onto the roof,
00:10:17
Speaker 1: and then there's the squabbling over who sits where, with
00:10:22
Speaker 1: Robin stretching out his long legs and winning the space
00:10:26
Speaker 1: in the front beside Hannah's father, so Hannah and her
00:10:29
Speaker 1: mother sit together in the back. Then there's the long
00:10:35
Speaker 1: drive to the airport, with Hannah's father spending the entire
00:10:40
Speaker 1: time chattering about traffic and if they should take a
00:10:43
Speaker 1: different route, and Hannah's mother checking her bag almost every
00:10:48
Speaker 1: five minutes for the passports. Of course, there are the
00:10:54
Speaker 1: umeboard moments on the way from Hannah, so they play
00:10:59
Speaker 1: the game of being the first to spot different colored
00:11:02
Speaker 1: cars and then I spy. They argue a little because
00:11:08
Speaker 1: Hannah forgot that cloud dispelled with a sea and not
00:11:11
Speaker 1: a k, so nobody could get her word, but by
00:11:15
Speaker 1: the time they arrive at the airport, everyone is laughing
00:11:18
Speaker 1: again and thinking of funny words to pick in future
00:11:21
Speaker 1: to get their own back, like terodactyl, which actually has
00:11:26
Speaker 1: a silent pa at the front. Of course, as always,
00:11:31
Speaker 1: they end up being right on time. They stroll through
00:11:35
Speaker 1: the huge hall with the bright lights and queue up
00:11:39
Speaker 1: at the desk to hand over their suitcases. The flight
00:11:45
Speaker 1: was all exciting for the first few minutes, folding down
00:11:49
Speaker 1: the tray table and looking out of the window and
00:11:53
Speaker 1: trying to spot their suitcases being loaded onto the plane.
00:11:57
Speaker 1: Then the air hostess came and handed over drinks and
00:12:02
Speaker 1: a little packet of the smallest biscuits Hannah has ever seen.
00:12:08
Speaker 1: But then, when all she can see is clouds, Hannah
00:12:12
Speaker 1: tries to fill the time by doing word searches and
00:12:16
Speaker 1: coloring in a picture from her Ultimate Bird coloring book.
00:12:21
Speaker 1: When she doesn't have exactly the right shade of red
00:12:25
Speaker 1: for her woodpecker, she sighs and puts her book away,
00:12:30
Speaker 1: because Hannah is, after all, a bit of a perfectionist
00:12:35
Speaker 1: when it comes to birds. Eventually, she falls asleep beneath
00:12:42
Speaker 1: the snuggly blanket and curled up against her father's shoulder,
00:12:47
Speaker 1: And in fact, she stays asleep for the rest of
00:12:50
Speaker 1: the flight, and only wakes up when the wheels touch
00:12:54
Speaker 1: the tarmac. Robin smiles across at her and says her, Barie, Hannah,
00:13:01
Speaker 1: welcome to tans in Ere Hakuna matata and all that.
00:13:07
Speaker 1: Hannah stretches her arms and wriggles all her fingers and
00:13:12
Speaker 1: stretches her legs and wiggles all her toes and looks
00:13:16
Speaker 1: out of the window to catch her very first glimpse
00:13:20
Speaker 1: of a new country. Everything is hazy with heat, the
00:13:25
Speaker 1: runway dancing and shimmering in the early morning sun. There's
00:13:32
Speaker 1: always something wonderful, she thinks about arriving in a brand
00:13:37
Speaker 1: new place. Hannah waits impatiently to leave the plane, popping
00:13:44
Speaker 1: from one foot to the other and constantly asking Robin,
00:13:48
Speaker 1: who can see over the heads of people in front
00:13:50
Speaker 1: of them? Have they opened the doors yet? Is it
00:13:54
Speaker 1: nearly time for us to go? How much longer? Now?
00:13:58
Speaker 1: And now? And now? Robin is just as excited as Hannah,
00:14:05
Speaker 1: but he is, after all, a full six years older
00:14:10
Speaker 1: than her, so he has learned to pretend that he isn't,
00:14:14
Speaker 1: although he does grin wider than usual. Her parents, who
00:14:20
Speaker 1: are even older than both of them, have mastered the art.
00:14:25
Speaker 1: We'll get off soon enough, they both say, just be patient,
00:14:31
Speaker 1: but Hannah catches her dad secretly glancing at his watch
00:14:36
Speaker 1: and then peering over the heads in front as well,
00:14:39
Speaker 1: and picking up and putting down his bag over and
00:14:43
Speaker 1: over again. Then they are off, hit by the wall
00:14:50
Speaker 1: of heat after the coolness of the plane. Walking between
00:14:55
Speaker 1: the little cones that mark their root on the runway,
00:14:59
Speaker 1: and then they're queuing up to have their passports checked
00:15:03
Speaker 1: and stamped. Hannah is a little disappointed that her stamp
00:15:08
Speaker 1: doesn't have a lion or an elephant or something on it,
00:15:13
Speaker 1: but it just announces the date that she's arrived in
00:15:16
Speaker 1: Tanzanier in a little square box. Oh well, she thinks
00:15:21
Speaker 1: to herself, it will still tell the story of her
00:15:24
Speaker 1: trip in years to come. When she looks back through
00:15:28
Speaker 1: the passport and all the stamps on all the pages,
00:15:33
Speaker 1: the four of them pile into a taxi, suitcases back
00:15:37
Speaker 1: on the roof once more, and they start easing their
00:15:41
Speaker 1: way through the city streets. Hannah watches the women in
00:15:47
Speaker 1: colorful clothes, walking tall and straight with baskets of fruit
00:15:53
Speaker 1: balanced perfectly on their heads. And she watches men on
00:15:58
Speaker 1: street corners laughing together. And she watches children in neat
00:16:03
Speaker 1: uniforms with backpacks in place, heading off to school. It
00:16:10
Speaker 1: always amazes her how everything can be so different and
00:16:15
Speaker 1: so exactly the same. Wherever she goes, there are markets
00:16:22
Speaker 1: and friends talking and schools, and everyone has their roles
00:16:27
Speaker 1: to play. The buses and taxis might look a little
00:16:31
Speaker 1: different and people might wear different clothes and eat different
00:16:36
Speaker 1: food and talk in a language she doesn't quite understand,
00:16:41
Speaker 1: but they're all out there living lives that are basically
00:16:45
Speaker 1: the same as hers. People are just people the whole
00:16:50
Speaker 1: world over, the same way. Birds are just birds, making
00:16:56
Speaker 1: nests and searching for food and fluffing up their feathers
00:17:01
Speaker 1: and soaring in the skies. But at the same time,
00:17:07
Speaker 1: all those birds are so different. There are the ones
00:17:11
Speaker 1: who live in groups together. And just as she thinks this,
00:17:15
Speaker 1: she sees a huge mass on a telegraph pole and
00:17:19
Speaker 1: points excitedly to Robin hook. She says, as the taxi
00:17:25
Speaker 1: speeds by, that's the nest of sociable weavers. Robin looks
00:17:32
Speaker 1: at Hannah and looks at the nest as it disappears
00:17:36
Speaker 1: behind them. It's a huge mass of reeds and grasses,
00:17:41
Speaker 1: woven together with countless tiny holes. Why such a big nest,
00:17:48
Speaker 1: he asks, curious in spite of himself, they live together.
00:17:54
Speaker 1: Hannah explains, the nest is sort of like an apartment block.
00:18:02
Speaker 1: That's why we call them the sociable weavers. See huh,
00:18:09
Speaker 1: says Robin, with genuine surprise on his face. Neat Hannah
00:18:15
Speaker 1: smiles to herself. She has impressed Robin with something, and
00:18:20
Speaker 1: that means a lot when it comes from someone who
00:18:23
Speaker 1: is six years older than you, and you think they're wonderful.
00:18:28
Speaker 1: A hawk swoops down and lands on top of the nest,
00:18:33
Speaker 1: and Robin catches his breath. Look Out, little weavers, he
00:18:38
Speaker 1: calls into the rush of wind outside the taxi window,
00:18:43
Speaker 1: and Hannah allows herself a bit of a smile. Ah,
00:18:48
Speaker 1: he's meant to be there. He acts as a sort
00:18:51
Speaker 1: of look out. You see, the sociable weavers let hawks
00:18:57
Speaker 1: and eagles and vultures hang out on top of their
00:19:00
Speaker 1: apartment block. He'll be the first to let them know
00:19:05
Speaker 1: if there's any danger around. You know, this is one
00:19:10
Speaker 1: of the only times in nature where animals live together
00:19:13
Speaker 1: like that. Robin looks at her, eyes wide. He's so
00:19:21
Speaker 1: distracted by it all, he's quite forgotten to sprinkle itching
00:19:25
Speaker 1: powder everywhere his planned joke for the taxi ride. I
00:19:31
Speaker 1: told you birds were amazing, Hannah says, with a little
00:19:36
Speaker 1: bit of smugness in her voice. Her father looks across
00:19:41
Speaker 1: and smiles at his daughter. She has taken every lesson
00:19:46
Speaker 1: he's ever taught her on board, well, nearly every lesson
00:19:54
Speaker 1: and what strange about that neurs right there? He asks Hannah.
00:20:01
Speaker 1: She scrunches up her face and thinks back to the nest.
00:20:06
Speaker 1: It looked fine to her, the mass that looked like
00:20:09
Speaker 1: a haystack hanging off the telegraph pole, just as it
00:20:13
Speaker 1: should be, the many tiny entrances allowing access to all
00:20:19
Speaker 1: the different little families of birds that lived inside. She's
00:20:24
Speaker 1: trying to remember everything she ever learned about sociable weavers
00:20:29
Speaker 1: and runs through the information in her head, checking it
00:20:33
Speaker 1: all off a list in her mind, before suddenly reaching
00:20:38
Speaker 1: the answer. Oh, she cries out, what's it doing here
00:20:44
Speaker 1: in Tanzania? That's right, isn't it? Her father smiles. She's right.
00:20:52
Speaker 1: The sociable weavers are known throughout southern Africa, but this
00:20:57
Speaker 1: far north it must be the only nest in the
00:21:01
Speaker 1: hole of Tanzania, and they happen to see it. Isn't
00:21:07
Speaker 1: it wonderful when that sort of thing happens, When you
00:21:12
Speaker 1: see something so very strange and so out of place,
00:21:17
Speaker 1: that it reminds you that there must be magic in
00:21:20
Speaker 1: the world, otherwise it just wouldn't be possible. It takes
00:21:27
Speaker 1: hour after hour in the back of the taxia to
00:21:31
Speaker 1: reach their camp set along the shores of Lake Natron.
00:21:36
Speaker 1: Robin reads the sign welcoming them and looks around, but
00:21:41
Speaker 1: can't see any sign of a lake. Oh is there,
00:21:46
Speaker 1: Hannah reassures him. We'll just have to walk to the
00:21:50
Speaker 1: top of that little hill and we'll be able to
00:21:53
Speaker 1: look down and see it. Trust me, she says, we
00:21:57
Speaker 1: can't miss it. It's the second and largest lake in
00:22:01
Speaker 1: all the world. Robin is still unconvinced, but he doesn't
00:22:07
Speaker 1: really mind whether or not he sees a lake. He's
00:22:10
Speaker 1: been shown the tent where he'll be staying for the
00:22:13
Speaker 1: next week, and it's even more wonderful than anything he
00:22:17
Speaker 1: had imagined. It's about five times the size of his
00:22:21
Speaker 1: bedroom back at home, and three of the sides have
00:22:24
Speaker 1: been rolled up, so from the huge bed in the
00:22:27
Speaker 1: center of the tent, he can look out at an
00:22:31
Speaker 1: endless scene that is impossibly, unmistakably Africa. Red Earth reaches
00:22:40
Speaker 1: out towards the horizon, dotted with thawny trees that have
00:22:44
Speaker 1: been bent and shaped by the prevailing winds, and there,
00:22:50
Speaker 1: walking towards the sun that is starting to sink in
00:22:53
Speaker 1: the sky, are lines of black and white zebras moving
00:22:58
Speaker 1: together tails flick away the flies, and they pause here
00:23:04
Speaker 1: and there to pull leaves from trees and grasses from
00:23:08
Speaker 1: the ground. Shifting in silence into the distance, Hannah points
00:23:14
Speaker 1: out four ostriches who are sitting with their legs folded
00:23:18
Speaker 1: into a puddle, neckt tall, and heads peering out towards
00:23:24
Speaker 1: the sun that is becoming redder and redder by the moment.
00:23:30
Speaker 1: The ladies are having a bath. She giggles, how do
00:23:35
Speaker 1: you know their ladies? Robin asks, the feathers. See that
00:23:41
Speaker 1: one over there, black feathers, he's male. The females are
00:23:47
Speaker 1: a soft dusky brownish grayish color. Robin looked back and
00:23:54
Speaker 1: forth between the lone black ostrich and the four sat
00:23:58
Speaker 1: together in the puddle. They looked, for all the world,
00:24:03
Speaker 1: like the ladies he had seen lined up getting their
00:24:06
Speaker 1: nails done in salons back at home. They were chattering together,
00:24:12
Speaker 1: sometimes leaning their heads back in a way that made
00:24:15
Speaker 1: him think they were laughing at a shared joke. Hannah
00:24:20
Speaker 1: poured at his hand. Come on, she said, time to
00:24:25
Speaker 1: visit the lake. She visited her tent first and rummaged
00:24:31
Speaker 1: around in her bag, triumphantly pulling out the tillie hat
00:24:35
Speaker 1: that Robin had given her there, she said, as she
00:24:40
Speaker 1: poured it on. Now I'm ready to go exploring. Robin
00:24:46
Speaker 1: grinned at her and pulled the note book out of
00:24:49
Speaker 1: his pocket and showed her the first page. Sociable Weaver
00:24:54
Speaker 1: and hawk had been written in place. He carefully wrote
00:24:58
Speaker 1: in O stretch. He'll be able to add another just now,
00:25:04
Speaker 1: she promised him. You're about to see two million flamingos
00:25:10
Speaker 1: all at the same time. Behind her, Hannah's father nodded
00:25:16
Speaker 1: his head. Her mother had been settled in her chair,
00:25:20
Speaker 1: feet up on a little stool, ready to sink into
00:25:24
Speaker 1: the evening with the setting sun. But even she pricked
00:25:28
Speaker 1: up her ears at that two million flamingoes. She said, well,
00:25:38
Speaker 1: that sounds like something worth seeing. I'll come with you.
00:25:44
Speaker 1: It was the first time she'd volunteered to visit birds
00:25:48
Speaker 1: with them. Of course, sometimes she saw them by accident,
00:25:53
Speaker 1: like the way she'd seen the sociable weavers on the
00:25:56
Speaker 1: way to the camp. But here she was choosing to
00:26:01
Speaker 1: go and see the birds for once. It made the
00:26:04
Speaker 1: evening even more perfect With little Hannah Sparrow, who led
00:26:09
Speaker 1: the way up the slope to the lookout point where
00:26:13
Speaker 1: they might stand and see the lake and its two
00:26:17
Speaker 1: million flamingoes. Even without the sun casting a soft pink
00:26:26
Speaker 1: light across the land, Lake Natron is always pink in color.
00:26:33
Speaker 1: Its shimmers and shines a glorious, gorgeous series of pink
00:26:40
Speaker 1: ripples that reach as far as the eye can see.
00:26:45
Speaker 1: And every year, millions of flamingoes come back home to
00:26:49
Speaker 1: the lake because they were born here, they're visiting home.
00:26:56
Speaker 1: They reached the top of the hill just in time
00:27:00
Speaker 1: to see a thousand flamingos coming into land. Pink wings
00:27:05
Speaker 1: beat slowly up and down, and a thousand flamingos called
00:27:11
Speaker 1: to the others, and two million flamingoes answer back. The
00:27:17
Speaker 1: new rivals fly around and around, sweeping this way and that,
00:27:24
Speaker 1: looking for a space where they can join the others.
00:27:28
Speaker 1: As they land, their long, thin legs rushing a few steps.
00:27:34
Speaker 1: As they come to a stop, the mass of pink
00:27:38
Speaker 1: ducks and weaves and bobs and dances. Pairs of flamingos
00:27:45
Speaker 1: break away from the group and stand together, necks weaving
00:27:50
Speaker 1: around each other, black beaks bobbing up and down, legs
00:27:56
Speaker 1: moving back and forth, back and forth in time to
00:28:01
Speaker 1: unheard music in the distance. A mountain brood softly silhouetted
00:28:10
Speaker 1: against the sky that was now so red that it
00:28:14
Speaker 1: made the African earth look dull. The Mountain of God,
00:28:20
Speaker 1: whispers Hannah, that's what they call it. You can see
00:28:26
Speaker 1: why Robin smiles down at his cousin. She really is
00:28:34
Speaker 1: the most wonderful person who seems to know everything about everything.
00:28:42
Speaker 1: The shifting pink of the flamingoes, the black shape of
00:28:47
Speaker 1: the mountain, the shapes of the Zebras who continued their
00:28:52
Speaker 1: slow walk into the distance, the final wink of a
00:28:58
Speaker 1: bright red sun sinking over the horizons, all the stuff
00:29:04
Speaker 1: of dreams. And he can hardly believe that only a
00:29:09
Speaker 1: day ago he was in his bedroom at home, sitting
00:29:13
Speaker 1: on his suitcase to get everything inside. Only when the
00:29:20
Speaker 1: last of the light has gone, only when the first
00:29:25
Speaker 1: jackal calls out beneath a billion bright stars into the
00:29:30
Speaker 1: soft blanket of the night, to Hannah. Sparrow and the
00:29:34
Speaker 1: others return to their tents and roll down the sides
00:29:39
Speaker 1: and climb into their beds, sinking into dreams that see
00:29:45
Speaker 1: a thousand flamingoes flying down to join a million others
00:29:52
Speaker 1: in a pink lake that stretches away as far as
00:29:57
Speaker 1: the eye can see they a dreamed of the beautiful scene,
00:30:03
Speaker 1: and they all believed as they slipped into sleep. But yes,
00:30:10
Speaker 1: it was true. Magic is real. It's just waiting to
00:30:17
Speaker 1: be found or people. One man