Destination Wild Presents the Animals of Summer: Sunday Nights on Nat Geo Wild

I received a sample for this review/feature. Opinions expressed are my own.

My oldest has a love and dare I say passion for learning about animals. She spends hours reading non-fiction books and watching educational videos about animals on her iPad. The girl is even at Science Center camp this week because she wanted to learn more about all things science. Even though she is only 6 she loves to watch Nat Geo Wild and starting this Sunday they have a new Destination Wild Series that will surely get my daughter and the rest of the family excited.

Bee-eaters belong to the most colourful European birds. (Photo credit: ? Klaus Wei?mann, naturfilm.com / NDR Naturfilm / Doclights GmbH)

The show will take you on a globe trotting adventure with the animals of summer, a motley crew of eagles, elephants, dolphins, monkeys, kangaroos, grizzlies and many more. They are upping the reality game with featherweight food fights, singing competitions, dance-offs and all-out brawls. The only rule is there are no rules.?Destination Wild?premiere specials air EVERY Sunday night on Nat Geo WILD for 12 weeks in a row, beginning Sunday, July 12, at 9/8c.

Only the winner gets a receptive hen.. (Photo credit: ? Goetzl, N?renberg / NDR Naturfilm / Doclights GmbH)

Real Angry Birds – Premieres Sunday, July 12, 9/8c

?Angry Birds? is an addictive game, but are there real angry birds out there? What happens when they stop being polite and start getting mad? For the aviary set, every day is a battle to survive, find food and shelter, and stay out of harm’s way. Tune in for a bird’s-eye view of our feathered friends? fights, singing battles and dance-offs.

The Eagles – Premieres Sunday, July 12, 10/9c

Eagles are top predators that battle fiercely for survival and diligently raise their young. This eagle clan has 60 members, united by their acute eyesight, powerful wings, sharp talons and hooked beaks. We follow one eagle from hatchling to home ownership. Her fight to survive shows what it takes to be queen of the sky. In the words of another reality diva: ?It’s Gone With the Wind fabulous.?

Brazil – Premieres Sunday, July 19, 9/8c?(two hours)

From the rolling mountains and luscious rain forests to the scorching desert and the iconic Amazon River, meet the extreme wildlife of Brazil. And we?re not talking about an episode of ?Botched.? We?re talking giant anteaters, venomous snakes, capuchin monkeys, dolphins, boa constrictors and many more.

Clever Monkeys – Premieres Sunday, July 26, 10/9c

Narrated by natural history legend David Attenborough,?Clever Monkeys?opens our eyes to a world filled with intelligence, love, sadness, empathy, language, lying, social manipulation, stress and humor more touching than anything you might see on Bravo! Scientists around the world are listening to monkey calls and finding language with grammar. They have even discovered lying monkeys. Some monkeys suffer from depression, high blood pressure, ulcers and stress. Come along to a monkey world that looks strikingly similar to ours.

Kings of Baja – Premieres Sunday, Aug. 2, 10/9c

There are few places on Earth more forbidding and beautiful than Baja, Mexico. That said, Laguna Beach came close in its reality heyday. Eight hundred miles long and 10 million years in the making, Baja is home to a punishing desert and the most diverse sea on the planet.?Kings of Baja‘showcases the unique evolutionary adaptations of the flora and mega fauna to survive in their slice of the ecosystem including sea lions, devil rays, great white sharks, hammerheads, giant mantas, whale sharks and gray whales.

Fur Seal Battleground – Premieres Sunday, Aug. 9, 9/8c

If you?re looking for the ultimate survival reality show, you won?t want to miss the adventures of Ruby and Oliver, two New Zealand fur seal pups struggling to learn the secret to staying alive. From the very start, they must stay out of the way of testosterone-charged bulls so they aren?t trampled to death. Every few days the pups are left to themselves while their mothers go off to feed. Only half of all fur seal pups survive the first year of life, so these pups must learn fast if they want to beat the odds.

Lemur Island – Premieres Sunday, Aug. 9, 10/9c

Millions of years ago, hundreds of castaway creatures crash-landed on Madagascar’s rugged shores. Isolated from the mainland, evolution went into overdrive. Of the tens of thousands of species found on the island, approximately 80 percent are unique. This myriad of bizarre life forms had a huge impact on the early human settlers ? lemurs in particular shaped their culture, fueling folklore and legend that still guide their lives today. Legend has it that early reality sensation Puck is descended from a lemur.

The Kangaroo King – Premieres Sunday, Aug. 16, 10/9c

The scorching interior of the world’s oldest continent is home to the toughest kangaroo on the planet, the mighty Red. You won?t want to miss extremely rare footage of a red kangaroo birth and specialized in-pouch cameras that capture an intimate portrait of Red’s development. We are also introduced to the kangaroo’s formidable neighbors through close encounters with wedge-tailed eagles, dingoes, venomous snakes and giant monitor lizards. This is a story of survival against the odds and what it takes to endure drought, heat wave and bushfire.

Alpine Underworld – Premieres Sunday, Aug. 23, 8/7c

The Alps? lofty mountain world is a holiday destination from January to December, but there is an unknown side to the picturesque vacation spot. Using the latest technology, our cameras summit lofty peaks and dive into ice-cold lakes to reveal zones of life and death. We?re talking real-world?Life Below Zero?here. The lakes? abyss includes ghostly shipwrecks complete with ghastly residents, medieval trees felled by too much snow and fascinating sea life. High up on the mountaintops we meet the animals that breathe this rare air including lynx, the poisonous asp viper and the stone eagle. This alpine tour brings an entirely new perspective to one of Europe’s most fascinating landscapes.

Wild Spain – Premieres Sunday, Aug. 23, 9/8c

Arab emirs called it the Great River; today it is called the Guadalquivir and it flows for 400 miles from the Carzola mountain range in Spain to the Atlantic Ocean. Together with a lone fox, we embark on the ultimate reality road trip along the banks of the Guadalquivir, from the snow-covered summits to the seashore, enjoying the greatest biodiversity in Europe. The fox’s goal is safer ground, and on his way he meets a motley crew of animals including an Iberian lynx, golden eagle, spider crab, dragonflies and sturgeon. This spectacular variety of landscapes and fauna is a must-see.

Elephant Queen – Premieres Sunday, Aug. 30, 9/8c

After the tragic death of her daughter, the herd matriarch must lead her elephants to safety. This epic journey will take them across an arid desert, past mud swamps, a valley of dust storms and beyond the lion gatekeepers of a forbidden kingdom, into the herds? ancient feeding grounds in the Okavango Delta. The route they will follow is an ancient one, etched in elephant memory that stitches waterhole to waterhole in an invisible map across the dry lands. However, if Mensah loses her way, her herd could all die of thirst, or worse.

Boteti – Premieres Sunday, Sept. 6, 10/9c

Twenty years of drought has turned the Boteti River into Botswana dust. The animals that live here endure hardship to stay alive and must adapt their behavior to survive. Herds of zebra fight over water, crocodiles dig tunnels to stay cool and elephants practice water conservation. Now for the first time in 30 years, rain has fallen, sending a stream of water through the riverbed. After years of extreme drought, the Boteti has returned in all its glory, transforming the landscape and bringing dramatic changes to the resident animals. It’s like when the contestants on Survivor get a food reward ? buckle up for a wild ride.

DISNEYNATURE: WINGS OF LIFE Narrated by Meryl Streep (NETWORK TELEVISION PREMIERE) – Sunday, September Sept. 13, 8/7c?(90 minutes)

WINGS OF LIFE?is a stunning adventure full of intrigue, drama and mesmerizing beauty. Narrated by Academy Award? winner Meryl Streep, this intimate and unprecedented look at butterflies, hummingbirds, bees, bats and flowers is a celebration of life, as a third of the world’s food supply depends on these incredible ? and increasingly threatened ? creatures.

Behind Russia’s Frozen Curtain – Premieres Sunday, Sept. 20, 9/8c

Explore the stark landscape, frigid sea and wild animals in Franz Josef Land, one of the most remote and inhospitable places on Earth. National Geographic Pristine Seas Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala leads a group of scientists and adventurers on the first international scientific expedition to Franz Josef Land. His team will work with some of Russia’s most formidable biologists, geomorphologists and ornithologists to see how climate change is affecting this untouched world.?Behind Russia’s Frozen Curtain?is also featured in Sala’s new book, ?Pristine Seas: Journeys to the Ocean’s Last Wild Places,? on sale Sept. 22.

Land of 10,000 Grizzlies – Premieres Sunday, Sept. 27, 8/7c

Russia’s Far East is a wild and isolated realm that was closed to outsiders by the Soviet military for most of the past hundred years, but wildlife was left to flourish. Compelled by the instinct to reproduce, millions of salmon journey to Russia’s remote Kamchatka Peninsula every summer, drawing some 10,000 grizzly bears to its shores. Talk about an AmazingRace.? Journey with us to this harsh and beautiful terrain to find Northern fur seals, the artic fox and Steller’s sea eagle.

In a city like Hamburg, peregrines find a lot of pigeons to hunt. (Photo credit: ? Grospitz & Westphalen / NDR Naturfilm / Doclights GmbH)

This is some Sunday night programming I can really get behind! National Geographic always has the best footage and photographs so I can’t wait to sit down and enjoy all the shows!

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