Flaming-going, going, gone! Photographer tracks flamingo flightpaths in incredible aerial images soaring over surreal rainbow landscapes

These extraordinary aerial images show thousands of flamingos sweeping across some of Africa’s most surreal landscapes in a riot of colour.

Photographer Alexandre Bès tracked the movements of flamingo flocks across Kenya and Namibia, capturing the birds as they passed over swirling alkaline lakes, rust-red waterways and vast desert coastlines.

From above, the scenes resemble abstract paintings rather than natural landscapes, with vivid streaks of orange, blue, gold and pink spreading across the terrain beneath the birds.

Many of the photographs were taken over Kenya’s Lake Magadi and Lake Bogoria, where mineral-rich alkaline waters create striking colours caused by algae, bacteria and cyanobacteria thriving in the extreme conditions.

The lesser flamingos flock to the lakes to feed on spirulina, a microscopic cyanobacterium that also helps give the birds their distinctive pink colouration.

In several images, the flamingos appear like drifting clouds of pink scattered across the water, while in others their formations resemble giant living shapes carved into the landscape.

Bès also followed the birds to Sandwich Harbour in Namibia, where towering desert dunes crash into the Atlantic Ocean, creating dramatic contrasts between deep black water, pale salt flats and golden sand.

Shot from the air, the flamingos look tiny against the enormous landscapes, adding scale to scenes that appear almost otherworldly.

The photographer documented the birds in flight as they crossed shimmering waterways and gathered in vast colonies stretching across the lakes.

Some of the aerial views create optical illusions, with the colourful terrain resembling marbled ink, flowing lava or even distant planets viewed from space.

The collection captures both the elegance of the flamingos and the extraordinary environments they inhabit, revealing patterns and colours invisible from the ground.

The images highlight one of nature’s most spectacular migrations, as thousands of flamingos move between feeding grounds across East and southern Africa in huge swirling flocks.