The bird mummies of Natron: Lake’s waters petrify animals that fall in

Photographer Nick Brandt collected and propped up small dead animals, including this calcified swallow, from Lake Natron’s shores for a series in his new book, “Across The Ravaged Land.”

The Rift Valley’s Lake Natron is the chosen mating ground of the endangered lesser flamingo. The long-legged waterfowl may flourish, but to any other living creature, Lake Natron is hell on earth. The lake’s steeply alkaline waters are a graveyard for thousands of small birds. Wildlife photographer Nick Brandt used the corpses littering the Tanzanian lake shores as posed models for a haunting new series of photographs.