Every year, spectacular seasons transform our planet. These beautiful stand alone films explore the unique opportunities and challenges posed by each season. Spring brings new life, but it's also a dash to wake up and get ahead of everyone else. Summer is a time of long days and glorious abundance. But the living isn't always easy when the temperatures rise. Autumn brings the world's most spectacular transformations. It's also the last chance to breed, to grow up, to stock up before the cold returns. And during winter – the most magical, dramatic season of all – animals find inventive ways to survive. This episode, narrated by Andrew Scott, celebrates the glorious nature of summer on Earth and the extraordinary ways animals and plants rise to the challenges it brings. With the sun shining and the flowers blooming, this is the season of splendid abundance, and the long hours of daylight make life burst out in a riot of activity. But you have to find clever ways to get your share of the good times while they last, and as temperatures soar, everything has to deal with sweltering heat. For a whole range of animals, from sneaky ring-tailed lemurs to battling ibex, and from overheated penguins to astonishing colour-changing lizards, summer is a time when the living is not always easy.