People are being asked to keep their eyes peeled for which feathered visitors stop by over the next week.

If you have been feeling the cold in the past two weeks – you are not alone. The whole country has been plunged into winter a month earlier than usual.

Nearly 1.3 million households are expected to have "smart" electricity meters installed by 2012 - but the nation's environmental watchdog today warned most of those meters will not be smart enough.

A pod of orcas has been sighted off the coast of St Heliers in Auckland this morning. Watch extended footage.

The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) has found a remarkable community secretly living in Fiordland. They are distinctly fishy, and include some species completely unknown to science.

The Department of Conservation is eradicating all pests from Rangitoto and Motutapu islands, with plans to set up a sanctuary for native species and protect the world's largest pohutukawa forest.

Dunedin residents again woke to sub-zero temperatures, with black ice making roads difficult.

Heavy snow has caused havoc today around Otago. Blizzards brought trucks to a crawl, while farmers hurried out to feed their animals.

Summer Rayne Oakes is a self named “eco model” who has a career in both fashion modelling environmental scientist.

3 News viewer David Frampton put took this video of yesterday's storm surge in Wellington.

A Wairarapa orchardist has gone to extraordinary lengths to win a war with his neighbours. His neighbours are 250,000 starlings.

The worst flooding for more than 30 years has left hundreds of Queenslanders trapped in their homes.

President Barack Obama today outlined the United States' first comprehensive effort to curb vehicle emissions while cutting dependence on imported oil, calling the plan an historic turning point toward a "clean-energy economy."

The New Zealand potato industry is exploring ways to fight off a new pest which has already cost it tens of thousands of dollars.

In the south, wintry weather has caused few disruptions, despite days of dire forecasts.

More than 30,000 people have been ordered to flee a wildfire that was burning above wealthy coastal communities after another hot, windy night in which the fire chief said "all hell broke loose."

Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth was powerful because of Gore's tremendous skills as a public speaker and presenter. Now eight New Zealanders are getting the opportunity to learn these skills from the man himself.

A year after Cyclone Nargis smashed through Myanmar wiping out whole villages and killing thousands, its survivors have sent a special thankyou to New Zealand.

An environmentally-friendly form of home-heating has made its way to New Zealand and it could save you "hundreds" on your winter heating bills.

Scar and Goldie are a couple of predators you don't want to mess with. They are saltwater crocodiles, and in a few weeks they will be on display at Butterfly Creek in Auckland, where people will be able to go to watch them feed.

The Department of Conservation's (DOC) Kakapo breeding programme is feeling the pressure of a hugely successful season.

New Zealand’s only King and Gentoo penguin populations have become a pack of show offs. Staff at an Auckland animal attraction have introduced a new programme to enrich the birds' social lives. It has also sharpened their sporting skills.

Relatives of the missing waited in agony Tuesday as rescuers dug desperately for earthquake survivors, jarred by a strong aftershock that drove home the continuing danger in the historic central Italian city of L'Aquila.

A huge ice shelf linked to the Antarctic coastline is on the verge of collapse. The Wilkins Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula is twice the size of Southland, but it is rapidly disappearing and scientists say it is part of an alarming trend.

It is the size of Hawkes Bay or Jamaica: A 20 kilometre long slice of ice that is floating away from Antarctica.

A powerful earthquake in mountainous central Italy knocked down whole blocks of buildings early Monday as residents slept, killing at least 91 people in the country's deadliest quake in nearly three decades.

Sam Judd is probably best known here as the victim of a shark attack in the Galapagos Islands back in 2007.

Waves up to four metres high are hitting Gold Coast beaches.

Officials in the flood-plagued US city of Moorhead have asked about one-third of the households in the city to evacuate ahead of the rising Red River, which broke a daunting 112-year high early Friday and breached one of the dikes fortifying the neighbouring city of Fargo.

We’ve got millions of pine trees and in cutting them down every year we produce 134 million tonnes worth of waste worth of waste. As the waste breaks down it releases carbon which is bad for global warming, but what say something came up with a clever process to lock up the carbon.

It has been a big day for some little kiwi icons. After years of planning, nine little spotted kiwi have been released onto Motuihe Island, just 30 minutes from Auckland.

Taranaki veterinary surgeons say they feel cheated by a government scheme to attract vets to rural areas and help deal with student loans.

The latest leg of Prince Charles’ South American tour has seen him retrace the footsteps of Charles Darwin.

An undersea volcano has erupted off the coast of Tonga shooting clouds of smoke steam and ash thousands of metres into the sky.

It's been more than five years in the making, taken her from melting glaciers in Chamonix to overcrowded slums in Mumbai, but now it's finished.

Nearly 64 kilometres of beaches in Australia's Queensland state have been blackened by oil spilled from a cargo ship caught in stormy seas this week leading the state premier on Friday to declare the area a disaster zone and warn the ship's operators could face legal action.

An oil spill from a damaged tanker has been described as the worst environmental disaster in southeast Queensland.

Conservation workers started the clean up of Australia's east coast beaches on Thursday, after a cargo ship leaked fuel when it was damaged by falling containers of fertiliser in stormy seas.

Off the California coast it has been getting harder to catch big fish like salmon but a whole lot easier to hook a deep sea monster - the Humboldt Squid.

The tiny west coast town of Karamea has a new way to attract tourists. The Oparara track is a 30km network of walkways through a pristine stand of native forest near Karamea, and it was all designed and funded entirely by the locals.

There has been a sad ending to the story about a whale languishing in the waters off Whangaparoa Peninsula north of Auckland.

Australian scientists have confirmed a great white shark was responsible for the attack on a surfer at Sydney’s Bondi Beach earlier this month.

Deep in the heart of the Southern Alps Aoraki Mount Cook towers high into the sky above a landscape of rock and ice

Heavy rain has caused severe flooding in Australia's New South Wales.

A world leader on marine mammals has found overwhelming evidence which suggests whales beach themselves as a result of human generated noise pollution.

While most of Australia is battling heatwaves, droughts and bushfires, the usually tropical state of Queensland is the exception. Sixty-two percent of it is currently underwater and has been declared a disaster zone.

Rain-battered residents in northeastern Australia were on alert Wednesday for snakes in their bathrooms and crocodiles in the road following repeated storms that have sent local wildlife in search of dry land or a safe haven.

The heaviest snowfall in two decades has seen Britain grind to a halt.

It has just gotten a whole lot easier to explore the world's oceans - and you do not have to be a sailor or a diver.

The tiny population of the Blue Duck is under threat from an explosion in the number of predators. The Blue Duck or Whio is endemic to New Zealand, but only 2,000 individuals remain.

Heavy snowfall overnight in Britain has caused widespread travel delays across the country including disruptions to flights and London's rush hour.

The bushfire in Australia that has destroyed more than 6,000 hectares in Victoria is now contained.

German scientists have been ordered by their government to halt a controversial 'ocean fertilisation' experiment off the coast of Antarctica.

Anglers have returned to Waitaki River this weekend following Meridian Energy's didymo 'flush out' on Monday. But it has not been a complete success as anglers are now angry a number of fishing spots have been cut off.

The Department of Conservation has taken on some ground-breaking technology in an effort to save the country's rarest kiwi.

Going clubbing could soon mean going green. A new type of dancefloor invented in Brussells converts energy from people dancing into electricity.

Archaeologists have found more evidence that New Zealand’s most dangerous pre-historic predator, co-existed with the earliest Polynesian settlers.

After a winter of conservation efforts the hydro lakes are so full that Meridian Energy is conducting a series of controlled spills.

Powercuts and blackouts will be less likely next year thanks to a giant wind farm nearing completion on the outskirts of Wellington.

Eight Department of Conservation workers have spent the week on Codfish Island working with the local Kakapo.