Untamed Americas - Season 1

From the Arctic to the peaks of the Andes, survival at great heights takes real guts. On the Yellowstone plateau, in a rarely filmed event, see newly awakened black bears go on the hunt for newborn elk calves. Get a ringside seat at one of the toughest mating contests on the planet as male big horn sheep in the Rocky Mountains literally go head-to-head in a bloody battle for breeding rights. Fly over erupting volcanoes in Central America as fledgling parakeets test their wings above 2000-foot Nindirí Volcano in Nicaragua. At the equator, see a bat that, until recently, no one knew existed, and that boasts the largest tongue-to-body ratio of any mammal in the world. In the Chilean Andes, filmed for the first time using HD cameras, watch as three puma cubs strike out on their inaugural hunt.

At the frozen poles or the sultry tropics, the coasts of the Americas host some of the greatest spectacles on Earth. Witness the never-before-filmed birth of a lemon shark in the shallow waters of the Caribbean, and the shark's escape to the safety of the mangroves as a hurricane threatens. At the Falkland Islands in the southern end of the Americas, watch male gentoo penguins perform mating jigs to attract females. Farther north, plunge into the Sea of Cortez off the coast of Mexico, where hordes of voracious giant Humboldt squid cannibalize their kin. Swim alongside thousands of graceful mobula rays - each with a wingspan stretching almost ten feet - as they glide through the water and then leap through the air in a dazzling display. Dive with striped marlin around slopes of underwater volcanoes in a stunning feeding frenzy captured on film. And feast with grizzly bears as they devour a stranded humpback whale along the shore.

In the deserts of the Americas, an abundance of wildlife has developed an array of bizarre and baffling against-the-odds survival strategies. Ride along with mustangs in the Great Basin desert as one outcast male fights to regain his place in the herd and secure his survival. Go to the Atacama desert along the coast of northern Chile, where Humboldt penguins raise their families in the driest place on earth. Join a father penguin that must scale a sheer cliff and run through a gauntlet of hungry sea lions in order to feed his young penguin offspring. Filmed for the first time in high speed infrared, see the Tiger Moth dodge millions of hungry bats emerging from night caves in the Chihuahua Desert. Witness a camouflaged lizard squirting foul-tasting blood at its predator - from its eye socket. See creatures of every stripe fighting for survival at the driest point in the season and then literally sink or swim when the rains finally arrive. And with the rains, witness the emergence of an unusual creature - the spadefoot toad. After waiting underground for over a year, the toad emerges, has sex and lays eggs. It is an all-out race to develop, or die.

The journey through the forests of the Americas offer three incredible extremes - frozen tundras, flooded plains and raging fires. As the summer flood season arrives in the Amazonian Rainforest, witness the mighty Amazon River burst its banks and transform a lush rain forest into a watery world where river dolphins hunt along the forest floor and an elusive jaguar takes down a caiman crocodile with stunning expertise. In twisted, tangled treetops, spider monkeys swing and leap, but they have to venture to the forest floor for a meal of mud. Farther north in the Great Bear Rainforest of Canada, see a sub-species of black bear with a white coat - known as 'the spirit bear' - as it emerges during the fall to feast on salmon. We visit the boreal forests of the Americas in the depths of winter to see how creatures survive the big freeze. And in the summer, witness the other extreme - massive fires that ignite, annihilating thousands of square miles of forest in a few hours. From salamanders to bears, animals have a choice: run or take cover. The flames will consume anything that can't escape in time