Week in wildlife – in pictures: joyriding birds, a rare golden cat and a surprise king cobra

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

Main image: Kestrel chicks look out from their nest on the side of a house in Rochdale, UK. They are about to take flight for the first time Photograph: Gemma DeCet/Animal News Agency

  • Jaw-dropping ... an Alaskan brown bear reaches for a salmon in a river in the Katmai National Park and Preserve. We often see photos of these bears fishing, but they also eat berries, grasses, sedges, cow parsnip, ground squirrels, carrion and roots
    A hungry Alaskan brown bear reaches for a salmon in a river in the Katmai National Park and Reserve

  • A fawn is carried to safety in Mehaigne, Belgium. The man doing the carrying is Cedric Petit, founder of Sauvons Bambi (Let’s Save Bambi), an organisation that rescues deer, hares and ground-nesting birds that have hidden under long grass in fields and meadows that are about to be ploughed up by farmers. Sauvons Bambi uses drones equipped with heat-sensitive cameras to find the animals; volunteers then move them to the edge of the field, where the mother can find them again. This year it has saved 834 fawns across Belgium and Luxembourg
    A deer is rescued by Cedric Petit, the founder of the ‘Asbl Sauvons Bambi’ association, who used a drone to spot the deer in the tall grass of the Mehaigne meadows in Belgium. In parts of the Belgian countryside teeming with roe deer, an animal lover has set himself a mission to dig out of the tall grass the young fawns left there by their mother and rescue them

  • A vet looks after an Asian golden cat after it was seized from an illegal animal hunter in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. These solitary wildcats are two or three times the size of a domestic cat, and live in the forests of southeast Asia. Listed as “near threatened”, they are poached mainly for their fur
    A vet checks a male Asian golden cat for treatment after he was seized from an illegal animal hunter by Indonesian nature conservation agency in Banda Aceh, Indonesia

  • An Atlantic puffin with a beak full of sand eels heads to feed its chicks on Skomer Island, Wales, UK. This year, wardens have tallied more than 41,000 puffins nesting on Skomer
    An Atlantic puffin with a beak full of sand eels heads to feed its chicks on Skomer Island in Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK. This year, wardens have tallied over 41,000 puffins nesting on Skomer

  • A newborn giant panda cub rests in an incubator at the Guangzhou Chimelong Safari Park in southern China. At birth it weighed just 178g – less than a hamster. Its mother, Mengmeng, is the eldest of the world’s only panda triplets
    A newborn giant panda cub born to giant panda Mengmeng is seen at the Guangzhou Chimelong Safari Park in Guangzhou, China. Giant panda Mengmeng is the eldest one of the world’s only panda triplets

  • A ladybird colony in Kahramanmaraş, Turkey
    A ladybird colony gathers at the Uludaz Hill in Kahramanmaras, Turkey

  • Kestrel chicks look out from their nest on the side of a house in Rochdale, UK. They are about to take flight for the first time
    Young kestrels line up ready to fly for the first time after nesting on the side of a home in Rochdale, UK. The baby birds have been living in a nest on the side of a house

  • Baby birds wait in a nest made by their mother in the middle of a lavender field in Demircihalil, Turkey
    Baby birds wait in a nest made by their mother in the middle of a lavender field in Demircihalil, Turkey

  • Geese form an orderly queue in Kuyucuk, Turkey, near the eastern border with Armenia. Spring wildflowers bloom later than usual in the region, thanks to its high altitude and harsh climate
    Geese walk among blooming flowers in Kuyucuk village where spring is late due to its high altitude and harsh climate, in Kars, Turkey

  • Two turkeys squabble in Santa Cruz, California, US
    Two turkeys squabble in a neighbourhood in Santa Cruz, California, US

  • Feeling the pinch ... Hercules beetles feeding on dead wood in Boyaca, Colombia. The insects – which look small in this photo, but are actually about 15cm long – have been recruited by engineer German Viasus. He releases beetle larvae into concrete ditches full of food waste and soil. As they grow, the larvae chew through the fruit and vegetable scraps, digest them and produce high-quality compost, which is then filtered and sold
    Colombian engineer German Viasus, is innovatively converting organic waste into high-quality fertilizer using beetles. This groundbreaking project not only transforms waste management but also highlights the crucial role of these small invertebrates in maintaining ecological balance in Boyaca, Colombia. Beetles, with over 375,000 identified species worldwide, play a crucial role in breaking down organic matter, including wood, one of the most challenging materials to degrade. These insects, far from being merely a curiosity, are essential in nutrient recycling and soil fertilization

  • A juvenile starling perches on a horse near Frankfurt, Germany
    A starling sits on the back of a horse in Wehrheim near Frankfurt, Germany

  • Black caimans in Corumbá, southwestern Brazil. They are an apex predator that will prey on just about any animal they can find, from snails to dogs to cows, and even other black caimans
    Black caimans crawl along a road a few kilometers from Porto Esperanca, in Corumba, Mato Grosso do Sul State, Brazil

  • A woman was left in shock after walking into her bathroom to find a king cobra emerging from her toilet in Rajasthan, India. The highly venomous reptile was removed by a professional snake rescuer
    A woman was left in shock after walking into her bathroom to find a King Cobra snake coming out of her toilet in Rajasthan, India. The highly venomous snake with its hood spread was removed by a professional snake rescuer

  • Red-billed oxpeckers travel on top of a wild boar at Mikumi National Park, Tanzania. They live on blood-filled ticks attached to the hides of rhinos and boars, but they also peck their hosts to take some blood for themselves
    Red-billed oxpeckers travel on top of a wild boar at Mikumi National Park, one of the fourth largest natural habitats in the country in Mikumi National Park, Tanzania

  • Bedraggled owlets are rescued from a fallen tree after a powerful storm in Podgorica, Montenegro
    Owlets are rescued from a fallen tree after a powerful storm in Montenegro’s capital Podgorica

  • Zebras huddle together at Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
    Zebras huddle together at Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. The park is 14,763 square kilometers and containing the world’s largest wildlife sanctuaries. The year-round ‘Great Migration’ route, which passes through different parts of Africa, passes through Serengeti between June and October. With the onset of drought in May, millions of wildebeest migrate northward from the south of the Serengeti to the Masai Mara in Kenya, where they are joined by gazelles, zebras and many other herbivores

  • A cucumber green spider spins its web at Aluçdagı Nature Park, Ankara, Turkey
    A cucumber green spider spins its web at Alucdagi Nature Park located in Camlidere district of Ankara, Turkey
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