The three part series will premiere on Nat Geo WILD this Sunday, February 12, at 8 PM ET.
Here’s a short summary of what you’ll learn in each episode:
Deep Freeze (Part I). The first episode shows you the starting point of the Mississippi river (at Lake Itasca in Minnesota), and then shows what life is like in the winter along the river. The episode has some amazing videos of bald eagles and bobcats hunting for food. Here’s one of my favorite clips:
Raging Waters (Part II). The second episode shows what the river is like in the springtime. This is when all the snow and ice melts, which can cause some pretty massive floods. I didn’t like this episode as much as the first, but it did have some awesome footage of coyotes and flying squirrels (I never knew they could “fly” up to 90 yards!).
Delta Blues (Part III). In the third and final episode, you’ll see some cool videos of Mayflies (which can create swarms so large that they show up on dopler radar!), and some great footage of bats hunting at night.
Overall, I thought the whole series was pretty cool. What I liked most about it was that it really showed the harsh reality of nature (by including so many videos of animals hunting other animals). I’ve always felt that nature is too often portrayed as “peaceful” — so, it was nice to see a documentary that kept it real 😉
Anyway, if you’re a subscriber to Nat Geo WILD, be sure to setup your DVR for February 12, at 8 PM ET.
About the Author: Steve Berardi is a naturalist, photographer, software engineer, and founder of PhotoNaturalist. You can usually find him hiking in the beautiful mountains and deserts of southern California.
FYI, the Smithsonian channel has been running a series called ‘Aerial America’ that features one state per program. It’s shot from the air (duh) in amazing HD quality. I highly recommend it. I’ll be sure to watch the Mississippi series, it sound very interesting.