Nat Geo's New Penguin Series Is the Chillest Earth Day Drop
Narrated by Blake Lively and hosted by wildlife explorer Bertie Gregory, the new Nat Geo series spotlights penguins like you've never seen them before.
Waddle into the wild: Just in time for Earth Day, National Geographic is dropping a frosty gem for animal lovers. Secrets of the Penguins, a three-part docuseries narrated by Blake Lively and hosted by award-winning explorer Bertie Gregory, is out now—and it’s way more than cute birds waddling around.
Premiering on Disney+ April 21, and airing on Nat Geo Wild starting April 22, the show dives deep into the surprisingly hardcore lives of penguins. Think: emperor penguin chicks base-jumping off a 50-foot ice cliff into the ocean. Yup, that happened.
“I have filmed penguins a lot before. I thought I knew penguins. I was so wrong,” said Gregory, who spent 274 days in Antarctica capturing footage alongside more than 70 scientists and filmmakers.
Shot across global locations—from the Galápagos Islands to Cape Town—the series captures penguins thriving in some of the most brutal environments on Earth. It even shows a rare moment where two penguins rehearse parenting by passing around an ice chunk like it’s their egg. “They didn't get an egg that season or it died, and so now they're doing training behavior to improve their odds,” said executive producer James Cameron.
But this isn’t just feel-good animal content. The series underscores an urgent message: penguins are under threat. With sea ice rapidly vanishing and avian flu outbreaks on the rise, over half of penguin species are now considered endangered or vulnerable. Scientists warn emperor penguins could face extinction by 2100 if current climate trends persist.
“We should want to look after penguins, not just because it makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside, but because we need healthy, wild places for so many things,” Gregory emphasized.
So if you’re into stunning nature footage, adorable-yet-badass birds, and climate urgency with a dash of Hollywood glam, this is the Earth Day binge you didn’t know you needed.