SIR DAVID’S DANGER MEN

Sir David’s favourite scene in A Perfect Planet was also the most challenging to film. Shot at Lake Natron in Tanzania – described by cameraman Matt Aeberhard as ‘the foulest place on Earth’ – the unique pictures show half a million pairs of flamingoes wading in the salt bed. Temperatures there rise to 55°C, and burning chemicals in the mud can strip away human skin.

‘Salt crystals cut into your legs, and the alkalis burn you,’ says Matt. ‘The sores take months to heal.’ Then, with the insouciance of a true wildlife cameraman, he adds, ‘It’s a cool place to work.’

The crew suffered one serious injury during filming, and that was on the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia, in the ‘valley of geysers’. Cameraman Rolf Steinmann was filming bears when he stepped into a pool of boiling water, taking the skin off his leg, yet he carried on filming. He needed a skin graft and spent four weeks on his back. Wildlife documentary crews are a breed apart.

They are also ingenious. Not able to fly over Lake Natron (pictured) because of the poor visibility, Matt went by hovercraft. ‘More people have landed on the moon than have stood with those flamingoes,’ he says. ‘It is inaccessible to predators.’