Im Bann der Jahreszeiten

It's February. The longer the winter lasts in Central Europe, the more people and animals feel its unpleasant side. The lack of light, the cold and the heavy snowfalls make life difficult. People and animals hope more and more longingly for the first signs of spring and the warming power of the sun. The eternal frost eats up the last reserves and forces the animals into a fight for survival. Accordingly, red deer in Austrian Carinthia are finding less and less food. The hunter Sixtus Volpini therefore goes into the forest to feed the animals and observes the red deer change. Raimund Seebacher and his South Tyrolean Avalanche Commission are faced daily with the difficult decision of whether or not to close some roads for safety reasons. At the same time, Kjetil Skogli goes aurora hunting with other Northern Lights enthusiasts in Tromsø in northern Norway. In the same place, psychologist Oddgeir Friborg examines the effects of the long darkness on the human mind, which suffers from a lack of vitamin D and falls into a depressive mood. Speleologist Andreas Schober and his team conduct the annual bat inventory in the Hessenhau Cave in the Swabian Alb, while eco-manager Sonia Séjourne observes the courtship of flamingos in the Camargue salt flats and creates artificial breeding nests for the spring. She wonders if the birds will stay in the Camargue to breed next year.