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A Year in the Wild - Episode Guide

Season 1

Spring

Episode: 1x01 | Airdate: Nov 10, 2015

Spring

Documentary series featuring the wildlife of Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park in Scotland, filmed across one year. It is spring, and migrating ospreys return to the park. Pregnant red deer come down from the mountain tops to the lowlands to calve. On a mountainside, two big cocks fight for the right to mate in a spectacle called a lek.

Summer

Episode: 1x02 | Airdate: Nov 17, 2015

Summer

The wildlife of Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. It is summer, and newborn animals and chicks must learn how to find food for themselves and avoid predators.

Autumn

Episode: 1x03 | Airdate: Nov 24, 2015

Autumn

Documentary series featuring the wildlife of Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park in Scotland, filmed across one year. Autumn is when stags compete to breed, osprey chicks begin a 3000-mile migration to West Africa, salmon return to the rivers where they were born and adders give birth to live young.

Winter

Episode: 1x04 | Airdate: Dec 1, 2015

Winter

Documentary series about the wildlife of Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park in Scotland, filmed across one year. The winter is mild and wet, which is good news for some but bad news for others. Red deer are forced to higher ground, salmon have gone six months without food, and squirrels kick their own young out of the nest.

Season 2

Spring

Episode: 2x01 | Airdate: Mar 21, 2017

Spring

Spring comes to the Dales and North York Moors National Parks, the season when the parks' animals must find food, a mate and raise a family. Adders battle to secure a mate, while grebes prefer a mating dance. On the coast, a quarter of a million sea birds arrive to nest, many returning to exactly the same nest site every year. And up around Malham Tarn, an injured, pregnant roe deer desperately seeks Spring's green shoots to survive.

Summer

Episode: 2x02 | Airdate: Mar 28, 2017

Summer

High up in Malham Cove, two 40-day-old peregrines must learn how to fly, while south of the North York Moors National Park, a pair of grebes carry their youngsters around on their backs. Facing unseasonably cold weather, times are tough for the roe deer of Malham Tarn.

Autumn

Episode: 2x03 | Airdate: Apr 4, 2017

Autumn

Autumn is on hold as summer continues, with unexpectedly balmy conditions throwing a life line to the roe deer as they prepare for the winter ahead.

Winter

Episode: 2x04 | Airdate: Apr 11, 2017

Winter

Winter is setting in, and the roe deer must fend off the cold. For salmon at the end of their odyssey, the chill means the time has come to spawn.

Season 3

Winter

Episode: 3x01 | Airdate: Sep 19, 2017

Winter

As temperatures hit minus 60 food becomes scarce, and animals such as foxes and hares shed their colourful coats to camouflage themselves in the snow. The end of winter heralds one of the world's greatest feeding frenzies as large ocean predators target the millions of fish who have found refuge in the Gulf of Alaska.

Spring

Episode: 3x02 | Airdate: Sep 26, 2017

Spring

With the arrival of spring, days grow longer and temperatures rise. Animals have two months to find food and start a family.

Summer

Episode: 3x03 | Airdate: Oct 3, 2017

Summer

Summer has arrived in Alaska. Free of ice, rivers and streams can flow again. This sets the scene for one of the world's greatest migrations, the Alaskan salmon run.

Autumn

Episode: 3x04 | Airdate: Oct 10, 2017

Autumn

Young animals prepare for their first winter away from their parents, humpback whales return to Alaska's rich feeding grounds and salmon return to spawn in the rivers where they were hatched. But the returning salmon have to negotiate a path past hungry brown bears fattening themselves before they hibernate.

Season 4

Autumn

Episode: 4x01 | Airdate: Oct 4, 2018

Autumn

With days growing shorter and colder, Canadian wildlife is in a race against time, and any animal that fails to make the most of what autumn has to offer will perish.

Winter

Episode: 4x02 | Airdate: Oct 11, 2018

Winter

Canada is in the grip of snow and ice, and animals are struggling. But while some animals hunker down, others have babies to raise.

Spring

Episode: 4x03 | Airdate: Oct 18, 2018

Spring

Spring is late this year, and when it finally arrives, the race is on to find a mate and start a family. Black bears and beavers in the west, wood frogs in the south and 20,000 gannets in the east all have one thing on their minds.

Summer

Episode: 4x04 | Airdate: Oct 25, 2018

Summer

Summer is the season of plenty for most animals, but not polar bears. Unable to hunt seals until the sea freezes over again, they grow hungrier by the day. For other animals summer is when youngsters must learn how to survive.

Season 5

Winter

Episode: 5x01 | Airdate: Sep 11, 2020

Winter

Stretching from the Antarctic in the south to the Arctic in the north, the Atlantic Ocean is vast, wild and unforgiving and each season brings new challenges for its indigenous creatures. Atlantic winters bring bitter storms, suffering and conflict. Animals that spend the frozen months here must be ready to face its fierce onslaught as short days make it difficult to find enough food in time. However, while most are battling to survive, some are just starting to raise a family.

Spring

Episode: 5x02 | Airdate: Sep 18, 2020

Spring

As winter draws to a close, the Atlantic springs back to life and hope returns. Temperatures rise, days lengthen and food is plentiful again. However, spring in the north is short, the animals only have a few months to find food, a mate and start a family - all the while avoiding predators. Around the British and Irish coast, thousands of gannets that spent winter off southern Europe and north Africa, must find a place to nest before they can raise a family. Meanwhile, killer whales leave Iceland and head to the Shetland Isles, where they hunt harbour seal pups.

Summer

Episode: 5x03 | Airdate: Sep 25, 2020

Summer

In the Atlantic's extreme north region, summer is short and food limited. Three of the five Arctic fox cubs have already left home - and time is running out for the remaining two. The two white-tailed eagle chicks have fed well and are now almost the size of their parents. They have out grown their nest, so it's time to take their first flight. For puffins, leaving home means jumping from their cliff top nests 600ft to the ocean below. Further south, in southern Spain's Donana National Park, dung beetles benefit from the rare Retueta horses, while in the UKs shallow coastal waters, sea horses dance, basking sharks gorge and blue sharks scavenge.

Autumn

Episode: 5x04 | Airdate: Oct 2, 2020

Autumn

In the Atlantic's far north, autumn is the season of gales, cooling temperatures and driving rain. This is the season when the wildlife must make the final preparations for winter or migrate to warmer climes. For some autumn is also the season to battle for a mate.

Season 6

Spring

Episode: 6x01 | Airdate: Jun 25, 2021

Spring

An in-depth look at the wildlife and natural elements that are abundant during the springtime in Scotland. A female mountain hare tests the virility of male contenders by letting them chase her over the mountains. Spring is also the season when emperor moths emerge from their silk cocoons. The males immediately start trying to find a mate, picking up the females' scent. Back in Shetland, spring plankton blooms have drawn in humpback whales, overlooked by millions ofseabirds, including 25,000 puffins.

Summer

Episode: 6x02 | Airdate: Jul 2, 2021

Summer

Summer has finally arrived in Scotland, bringing long days and an abundance of food. On the west coast, two white-tailed eaglets are learning to fly, and the larger female is beginning to master it. On a beach in the Shetland Islands, the seas are full of plentiful feeding opportunities for young otters learning to go it alone.

Autumn

Episode: 6x03 | Airdate: Jul 9, 2021

Autumn

It's autumn in Scotland and the clock is ticking. As daylight diminishes and the weather cools, food resources dwindle. Animals must either migrate now or prepare to face the winter head on. Autumn sees the first sprinkling of snow on Scotland's highest peaks. Inland moorlands turn from pink to brown as heather flowers fade.

Winter

Episode: 6x04 | Airdate: Jul 16, 2021

Winter

This winter is breaking all the rules. It's late January and in the western Highlands of Scotland, it's unusually warm, almost summer-like, even at night. The warmth has brought red deer out of hiding. With no snow or bitter winds to contend with, they're heading back to the hilltops, where there's plenty of heather to eat.

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