Week in wildlife – in pictures: geese on parade, a radioactive rhino and a lovestruck eagle

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

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Main image: Geese flap over soldiers’ heads during the anniversary parade of the Royal Life Guards in Copenhagen, Denmark. Photograph: Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Getty Images

  • A humpback whale breaching off the coast of Niterói, near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
    A humpback whale jumps out of the water

  • Having a gander ... low-flying geese flap over the heads of soldiers during the anniversary parade of the Royal Life Guards in Copenhagen, Denmark
    Geese fly above soldiers with blue trousers and big hats

  • Dorset Wildlife Trust has found evidence that beavers have moved into the neighbourhood of the River Stour, which runs down to Christchurch. The trust introduced a male and female beaver to a wild area in the county in 2021. This week, a member of the public spotted a gnawed and felled tree in the Gillingham area, suggesting the introduction was a success
    A beaver in vegetation.

  • Flocks of egrets in the branches of the water forest in Jinhu County, eastern China
    Flocks of egrets in the branches of the water forest

  • A black mud-dauber wasp in West Bengal, India. These insects capture spiders and paralyse them, then drag them back to their mud nests as food for their larvae
    A black mud-dauber wasp

  • A vervet monkey in Lake Mburo national park, Uganda [• This caption was amended on 28 June 2024. A previous version said it was a ‘young chimpanzee’ in ‘Rwakobo national park’]
    A young vervet monkey sitting in a tree

  • Fighting dirty ... male blue spotted mudskippers battle during breeding season in the Ariake Sea in Ogi, Kyushu, Japan
    Two blue spotted mudskippers battle in mud

  • A male white-tailed deer with velvety antlers wades through the shallows at the Oxbow Nature Conservancy in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, US
    A male white-tailed deer with velvet antlers in shallow water

  • Absolute unit ... a wandering hippopotamus at Queen Elizabeth National Park in Kasese, Uganda
    A wandering hippopotamus in long grass

  • A raccoon checks out a protest encampment on the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara
    A raccoon sits below a banner that reads 'The World Stands with Palestine'

  • A newly fledged peregrine falcon chick spreads its wings as it perches on top of a camera at the University of Montreal, Canada. Only six weeks old, the chick has been named Hugo
    A peregrine falcon chick perched on top of a CCTV camera

  • A herd of milu deer wander through the mudflats on the Tiaozini wetlands, on the east coast of China. The pink plant is seepweed, similar to samphire
    A herd of milu deer wander through the mudflats with lots of red plants and some green grass

  • A rhinoceros lies sedated as scientists inject radioactive material into its horns, in Mokopane, South Africa. The isotopes make it more difficult for poachers to smuggle the horns through airport security, as well as rendering the horns unfit for human consumption, without harming the rhino or the environment
    A sedated rhinoceros lies unconscious as South African scientists inject radioactive material into horns

  • A female harpy eagle at La Reserva Biopark in Cota, near Bogotà, Colombia. The bird has been hunted and trafficked to near-extinction in parts of South America, but biologists have put a male and female pair together in this bio-dome in the hope that they will reproduce. The pair have been seen bumping beaks and feeding each other – signs that they have hit it off
    A female harpy eagle in Bogotá, Colombia

  • A damselfly rests on a leaf by the Thames in the UK
    A green damselfly rests on a leaf

  • One of the two wildcats that were released into the Cairngorms National Park last June. The female has since given birth, marking a ‘major milestone’ for wildcat recovery in Scotland, after the species was deemed to be on the verge of extinction in 2018
    A wildcat in grasslands

  • A stork flies off from its nest while the family look on near Frankfurt, Germany
    A stork flies off from its nest

  • Two Rose’s blue butterflies at the Lake Van basin, Turkey
    Two white and yellow spotted Rose’s blue butterflies in sand

  • A snake swallowing a frog on the edge of a stream in Bolu, Turkey
    A black and yellow snake with a black frog in its mouth

  • A dolphin leaps out of the water off the coast of Niterói, near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
    A dolphin leaps out of the blue water

  • A bear cools off on a hot day at Izmir Wildlife Park, Turkey
    A polar bear in shallow water

  • Wild horses trot past the Hermitage of El Rocío during the annual Saca de las Yeguas (roundup of the wild mares) in Almonte, south-western Spain. Each year in late June large herds of free-roaming horses are rounded up from the marshes and forests at the Doñana National Park to be driven past the hermitage, where they are blessed before heading on to run through the crowded streets
    A herd of horses running past a church
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