The week in wildlife – in pictures: fluffy kiwi chicks, a ‘swimming’ mole and a lucky duck

09 12 2023 | 03:21Joanna Ruck / THE GUARDIAN
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This photo, entitled Nightly Elevator, won the behaviour category in the Royal Society Publishing photography prize this week. It shows a jellyfish ascending to the surface, where it will feed in darkness, safe from daytime predators. Before dawn it will sink back down to safety. This one, however, has a hitchhiker: the little yellow fish has hopped aboard for a free ride up. Piggybacking like this also offers the fish a measure of protection, since passing predators tend to avoid the jellyfish’s stingers.
Photograph: Tom Shlesinger/Royal Society Publishing
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Kiwi chicks, the first born in the wild for more than 100 years, west of Wellington, New Zealand. The fluffy and flightless kiwi is one of the most vulnerable birds in New Zealand and conservationists believe it has been absent from the capital for generations. Paul Ward, founder of the reintroduction initiative, said he hoped the project would help educate the public about the birds’ ‘toughness and fighting spirit’, but added: ‘We have to admit, they are ridiculously cute.’
Photograph: Dr Christine Stockum

 

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Ice and a slice ... mallard ducks struggle to find their balance while chasing food thrown to them on a frozen pond in Kidderminster, UK, after a harsh frost.
Photograph: Lee Hudson/Alamy Live News

 

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Finja, a lynx, bounds out of her transport box into Germany’s Black Forest earlier this week. Having been brought up in a game reserve without human contact, she now has an important job to do: there are very few lynx left in the area, and most are male. “The name Finja roughly means the beautiful, the bright one and fits the young lynx lady, who will be the first to turn the heads of the cows in the state,” said Johannes Enssle, a conservationist. More female lynx will be released in Baden-Württemberg in future, in hopes of building up the population.
Photograph: Uli Deck/DPA/Cover Images

 

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A barn owl flies at the golden hour, swooping and hunting in Norfolk, UK. Widespread across the UK, it has also been known as the demon owl, rat owl, stone owl, hissing owl, monkey-faced owl, hobgoblin owl and, rather sweetly, the delicate owl.
Photograph: Simon Litten/mediadrumimages/Simon Litton

 

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A herd of wild elephants gather near a rice paddy field in search of food in Assam, north-eastern India. Elephants are partial to rice; they generally prefer the plant’s nutritious stems, but they will go to some lengths to get the grains, too. In southern India, an elephant was videoed dragging bags of rice out of a shop and scooping up its prize by the trunkful.
Photograph: Anuwar Hazarika/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

 

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A jet-lagged Jackson’s chameleon seized from a passenger at Lima airport in Peru. The lizard, which is native to Kenya and Tanzania, is internationally protected. It was just one of about 160 animals illegally crammed into the passenger’s two suitcases, including tarantulas, a turtle, 14 frogs and 29 corn snakes, which were concealed in a bottle of baby formula.
Photograph: SERFOR/AFP/Getty Images

 

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Waxwings feeding on rowan berries in Norwich, Norfolk, UK. The birds have recently moved west from Russia and Scandinavia, seeking a more abundant berry harvest. One waxwing can eat roughly its own weight – 390 berries – in under three hours.
Photograph: David Tipling/SWNS
 
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A sea otter off the shore of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. Hunted almost to extinction for their pelts, the voracious mammals are being reintroduced to their traditional haunts in a project that has brought together the region’s Indigenous Haida nation and the governmental agency Parks Canada.
Photograph: Rolf Hicker Photography/Alamy

 

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ntroducing Pristimantis loeslein, a new species of whistling frog recently discovered in Peru. Less than an inch long, the frog is named after a German family who have supported research and conservation efforts in the Peruvian rainforest. It was discovered by scientists who heard it whistling in the undergrowth as they walked past.
Photograph: Joern Koehler/San Marcos University's Museum of Natural History/AFP/Getty Images

 

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A kingfisher gives its dinner a good shake on Lake Mogan, Ankara, Turkey.
Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

 

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A scarlet skimmer dragonfly, also known as a crimson darter, holds onto a dead flower stem at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. If its devilish red eyes put you off, consider that it does us all a favour by preying on mosquitoes.
Photograph: Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images

 

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