Instagram story viewer> @nzgeo> Posts

New Zealand Geographic

@nzgeo

2644

posts

36.9K

followers

60

following

The magazine that celebrates our country in all its diversity: its people, places and wildlife #nzgeo

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Download All

We’re about to find out what the deadliest avian flu in history means for a nation of birds

Last Wednesday, the scenario we’ve been dreading, and fully expecting, finally played out: a brown skua picked up on a Petone beach tested positive for H5N1. We passed the press release around a New Zealand Geographic group chat. “And so it begins,” wrote oceans photographer Richard Robinson. That night, he dreamed about the sea lion colony he’s documented on Enderby Island—so many big bodies dead on the sand, in the water, skuas and giant petrels picking at the carcasses and flying the flu to the next island.

Only 300 individual birds in New Zealand have any sort of protection from H5N1, which has devastated wild birds and domestic poultry across the world. The virus has also killed tens of thousands of sea lions and fur seals. What will it do now it’s here?

Read the story. 🔗 in bio.

📷: Richard Robinson by @nzgeo

255

7

4 days ago

Entries for the 2026 Photographer of the Year closes midday!
Have your submitted yours? ➡️ nzgeo.com/photo

Wāhine practise together; tāne train under night rain on the marae ātea; tamariki climb trees to get a better view of rehearsals. Erica Sinclair followed the kapa haka team Te Taumata o Apanui in the lead-up to their first Te Matatini contest and beyond. “The true kaupapa lay beyond the competition,” says Sinclair, “in building whānau, raising future leaders, and sustaining tikanga.”

📷: Erica Sinclair, Highly Commended—2025 PhotoStory by @nzgeo

57

0

11 days ago

#entryoftheday Kaitlin Lawrence entered this shot in the @aucklandzoo Wildlife category today.

"A humpback whale turns to have a look at us and spy hops in front of us in the NZ territory of Niue. Nothing better than the curiosity of marine creatures."

Do you have what it takes?

Photographer of the Year 2026: Entries closes tomorrow.
Submit your entries ➡️ nzgeo.com/photo

#nzgeophoto #poty2026 by @nzgeo

120

1

11 days ago

Entries are closes tomorrow for the 2026 Photographer of the Year.
Submit your entries ➡️ nzgeo.com/photo

Mist hangs on Ōtākaro, the Avon River, on a Saturday morning. “I made compositions from a distance away and waited for people to walk through the scene,” says John Doogan, who has been documenting the park through the seasons. “It is particularly beautiful in mist, so if mist is forecast I try and make it down there with my camera kit.”

📷: John Doogan, Highly Commended—2025 @resenecolour Landscape by @nzgeo

92

1

12 days ago

Entries for the 2026 Photographer of the Year competition closes this Wednesday.
Have your submitted yours? ➡️ nzgeo.com/photo

This pedestrian footbridge crossing Auckland’s southwestern motorway took on a different quality to Artem Proskurin after dark. “In the night, the view was almost magical,“ he says. To him, it looked like something organic, the bridge’s rigging reminiscent of a leaf skeleton. To capture this vision of it, he returned to photograph it by night.

📷: Artem Proskurin, Runner-Up—2025 Built Environment by @nzgeo

38

1

12 days ago

Entries closes this Wednesday for the 2026 Photographer of the Year.
Have your submitted yours? ➡️ nzgeo.com/photo

Downhill mountain biker Brook Macdonald nails a manual–like a wheelie, but more difficult–amidst Rotorua’s autumn colours. Sports photographer Graeme Murray envisaged the shot in advance and built a camera rig especially for it. “It worked straight away,” he says, “which I was stoked about.”

📷: Graeme Murray, Highly Commended—2025 @onenewzealandofficial Adventure by @nzgeo

63

1

13 days ago

#entryoftheday Jeremy Rudy entered this shot in the @resenecolour Landscape category today.

Do you have what it takes?

Photographer of the Year 2026: Entries are closing soon.
Submit your entries by 15th July 2026 ➡️ nzgeo.com/photo

#nzgeophoto #poty2026 by @nzgeo

151

2

13 days ago

#entryoftheday Shannon Nicholson entered this shot in the Society & Culture category today.

Culture Embassy perform on a crowded stage at the Mussel Inn, Onekaka.

Do you have what it takes?

Photographer of the Year 2026: Entries closing soon
Entries close this Wednesday ➡️ nzgeo.com/photo

#nzgeophoto #poty2026 by @nzgeo

15

0

14 days ago

Entries are closing soon for the 2026 Photographer of the Year.

Have your submitted yours? ➡️ nzgeo.com/photo

Landscape and location photographer John Doogan had often seen this toppled tree while mountain biking in Montgomery Spur Reserve, and wondered what it looked like from the air. One spring day, he returned with his drone, and captured an image of it where it lay.

📷: John Doogan, Runner-Up—2025 @motatnz Aerial by @nzgeo

69

1

14 days ago

#entryoftheday Steve Hussey entered this shot in the Portrait category today.

A worker cuts through anchor chain.

Do you have what it takes?

Submit your entries ➡️ nzgeo.com/photo

#nzgeophoto #poty2026 by @nzgeo

21

0

15 days ago

High on a range northwest of Napier, where mist snags on the limestone outcrops and a relentless wind shivers the velvet grasses, three-quarters of the known wild population of Myosotis petiolata is in full bloom.

There are four plants, we think, growing on a couple of rocks a few hundred metres apart. Less than a handful of these tumbling native forget-me-nots with their furry teardrop leaves and, for just a month in summer, precious star-like white flowers. In a country known for its endangered plants—nearly half of them are threatened or at risk—this is one of the rarest.

Read the full story. 🔗 in bio.

📷: Brennan Thomas

#weekendread by @nzgeo

113

2

15 days ago

Final week to submit your entries for the 2026 Photographer of the Year.
➡️ nzgeo.com/photo

Sports photographer Rod Hill has made an ongoing project of photographing friends paddling Huka Falls—here, whitewater kayaker Mic Uhl exits a rapid nicknamed the ‘pencil sharpener’. “The conditions were fantastic for me with really deep shadows,” says Hill, “but it was particularly cold and misty. The paddlers were all in dry suits.”

📷: Rod Hill, Highly Commended—2025 @onenewzealandofficial Adventure by @nzgeo

50

0

17 days ago