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

Bound for glory … European hares cross a field in Konya, Turkey

A hummingbird hovers at Monserrate hill in Bogotá, Colombia. This species, known by the wonderfully descriptive name “mountain violet-ear”, is one of the fastest hummingbirds: a pair were once recorded flying at 90mph (140kph) during a chase

Full tilt … two burrowing owlets stand guard outside their burrow in Davie, Florida, US. Also known as the shoco, this is one of the few owl species that nest and roost in burrows, often digging them or taking over abandoned ones made by other animals

A water vole in Britain. Water vole populations look to be bouncing back; overall, numbers have declined but in some regions of the UK there are signs of recovery, thanks to habitat restoration and tighter control of its main predator, the American mink

A fight between two female musk oxen, Norway. A runner-up in the Polar Wonders category of the Environmental Photography awards. The image was captured in Norway’s Dovrefjell national park, where the musk ox (Ovibos moschatus) was reintroduced several years ago for its conservation. It is normal for males of this species to engage in fierce battles during the mating season but unusual for two female

A hippopotamuses and its two calves wallow in the water at the Maasai Mara national reserve, Kenya, which is home to dozens of species of wildlife such as lions, leopards, cheetahs, elephants, giraffes, zebras and antelopes

A koala on a recently cleared blue gum plantation next to Budj Bim national park in Victoria, Australia. Thousands of koalas are being displaced each year as blue gum plantations are cut down in Victoria, worsening overcrowding in nearby forests and exacerbating the risk of injury and death during bushfires

Red alert … the sun shines on a family of foxes in a garden in Clapham, south London

A puffin comes in to land on Inner Farne island, Northumberland. It was snapped during the National Trust’s annual puffin count – one of only two since 2019, since several were cancelled due to Covid-19 and the bird flu epidemic. In 2024, “it was a huge relief to discover that the puffin population was ‘stable’ with 50,000 pairs recorded,” said a Trust ranger

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

A seagull hunts pearl mullets swimming upstream in Van, Turkey

Zebras pause as they migrate from the Serengeti national park in Tanzania to the Maasai Mara in Kenya

A gulf fritillary butterfly lands on a plant as people count them during the North American Butterfly Association Shark Valley butterfly count in the Everglades, Florida, US. Reports indicate that the number of butterflies across all regions in the contiguous US is declining

A stork mother and her two chicks in their nest in Wehrheim near Frankfurt, Germany

All aboard … cygnets take the dry option and hitch a lift on their mother’s back at Walcot Pool, Shropshire, UK