Wings Over Water: Gorgeous Nature Doc is Perfect Family Fare for Earth Day

By Liz Braun

Rating: A

If you’re thinking of something special to do as a family for Earth Day — today, April 22 — consider seeing Wings Over Water, a fascinating documentary about what’s known as the Prairie Pothole Region, a crucial pitstop for migratory birds.

Yellow Warbler

Entertaining, educational, and full of terrific wildlife footage, the film has a running time of 45 minutes — just right for even the youngest moviegoer. It’s also narrated by Michael Keaton: the best Batman.

Spread across three Canadian provinces and five U.S. states, this Prairie Pothole Region is a wetland system that’s home to a dazzling array of fish, flesh, and fowl. It supports an amazing diversity of life. Formed when the glaciers retreated, the area is massive, and interconnected with far distant ecological systems on our planet.

It’s also central to the lives of millions and millions of waterfowl. And it’s almost unknown.

As Marshall Johnson, Chief Conservation Officer of the National Audubon Society points out in the film, it’s amazing how little people know about this area, considering what it contributes in the way of clean air and water to the continent.

Wings Over Water takes an audience through a year of seasons and life changes in the Prairie Pothole Region. The film follows three migratory birds: the tiny Yellow Warbler, Mallard Ducks, and huge Sandhill Cranes.

The birds are followed as they make their way across thousands of miles to return to these prairie wetlands every spring. All three bird types follow established migratory routes, finding their way with astounding accuracy using their innate navigational abilities.

The birds mate and pair off, and by the time most arrive at the vast system of ponds and wetlands that make up the area, they are ready to nest. Spring has warmed the waters in each of the thousands of pools and they’re teeming with the insect and plant life the birds need to survive.

Wings Over Water follows the cycle of life. The birds lay eggs in protected nests. Some survive, but not all; soon enough, spring comes, and baby birds and other creatures abound.

The film moves next into the less cheerful bits, which is that these wetlands are shrinking as humans encroach. The result is more severe flooding than in the past, and three billion fewer birds in North America today than there were 50 years ago.

Canvasback duck with babies

The central valley area of California is offered as an example of how bad things can get, as the wetlands have been almost entirely eliminated there. Some two-thirds of the entire planet’s wetlands have been drained and degraded.

Fortunately, conservation specialists and scientists are already working to reverse this trend in the Prairie Pothole Region. The film introduces experts such as Dr. Susan Felege of the University of North Dakota, who is gathering data on duck populations, and farmers such as the Johnson family who are reversing the damage done to the wetlands and restoring the soil on their farm.

As Keaton says in his closing comments, Wings Over Water is a plea for the prairie wetlands and their preservation, lest we lose this crucial ecosystem before people understand how important it is.

One can only hope somebody shows this film to Doug Ford. Proceeds support conservation efforts through Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC).

Wings Over Water. Directed by Andrew Young, written by Wendy Mackeigan and Alex Mifflin. Screening at select Cineplex and Landmark theatres today only (Earth Day, April 22) in 2D and 3D (and at a special price), and available for school group bookings through May 31.

Information is available here to teachers and educators here.