Week in wildlife: hitchhiking cygnets, a criminal duck and hopping hares

Bound for glory … European hares transverse a tract successful Konya, Turkey

A hummingbird hovers astatine Monserrate elevation successful Bogotá, Colombia. This species, known by the wonderfully descriptive sanction “mountain violet-ear”, is 1 of the fastest hummingbirds: a brace were erstwhile recorded flying astatine 90mph (140kph) during a chase

Full tilt … 2 burrowing owlets basal defender extracurricular their burrow successful Davie, Florida, US. Also known arsenic the shoco, this is 1 of the fewer owl taxon that nest and roost successful burrows, often digging them oregon taking implicit abandoned ones made by different animals

A h2o vole successful Britain. Water vole populations look to beryllium bouncing back; overall, numbers person declined but successful immoderate regions of the UK determination are signs of recovery, acknowledgment to situation restoration and tighter power of its main predator, the American mink

A combat betwixt 2 pistillate musk oxen, Norway. A runner-up successful the Polar Wonders class of the Environmental Photography awards. The representation was captured successful Norway’s Dovrefjell nationalist park, wherever the musk ox (Ovibos moschatus) was reintroduced respective years agone for its conservation. It is mean for males of this taxon to prosecute successful fierce battles during the mating play but antithetic for 2 female

A hippopotamuses and its 2 calves wallow successful the h2o astatine the Maasai Mara nationalist reserve, Kenya, which is location to dozens of taxon of wildlife specified arsenic lions, leopards, cheetahs, elephants, giraffes, zebras and antelopes

A koala connected a precocious cleared bluish gum plantation adjacent to Budj Bim nationalist parkland successful Victoria, Australia. Thousands of koalas are being displaced each twelvemonth arsenic bluish gum plantations are chopped down successful Victoria, worsening overcrowding successful adjacent forests and exacerbating the hazard of wounded and decease during bushfires

Red alert … the prima shines connected a household of foxes successful a plot successful Clapham, southbound London

A puffin comes successful to onshore connected Inner Farne island, Northumberland. It was snapped during the National Trust’s yearly puffin number – 1 of lone 2 since 2019, since respective were cancelled owed to Covid-19 and the vertebrate flu epidemic. In 2024, “it was a immense alleviation to observe that the puffin colonisation was ‘stable’ with 50,000 pairs recorded,” said a Trust ranger

The elusive Blyde River level gecko, pictured successful the canyon that gives it its name, successful bluish South Africa. Until now, the lizard had managed to evade cameras ever since it was discovered successful 1991

A seagull hunts pearl mullets swimming upstream successful Van, Turkey

Zebras intermission arsenic they migrate from the Serengeti nationalist parkland successful Tanzania to the Maasai Mara successful Kenya

A gulf fritillary butterfly lands connected a works arsenic radical number them during the North American Butterfly Association Shark Valley butterfly number successful the Everglades, Florida, US. Reports bespeak that the fig of butterflies crossed each regions successful the contiguous US is declining

A stork parent and her 2 chicks successful their nest successful Wehrheim adjacent Frankfurt, Germany

All aboard … cygnets instrumentality the adust enactment and hitch a assistance connected their mother’s backmost astatine Walcot Pool, Shropshire, UK