A newly hatched spotted sandpiper chick gets its feet wet while foraging along the bank of the Umpqua River near Elkton, Oregon, US. In this species, it’s typically the male that takes on most of the parenting duties, incubating the eggs and caring for the young. The chicks are able to walk and feed themselves within hours of hatching, though they remain under the watchful eye of their father for several weeks
Photograph: Robin Loznak/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock

Dolphins leap out of the water at Thornwick Bay, East Yorkshire, UK
Photograph: Rachel Bartle/SWNS

Yellow-eyed penguins compare notes after returning to their colony on Katiki point on New Zealand’s South Island
Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

A New Zealand fur seal basks in the sun at Katiki Ppint
Photograph: Sanka Vidanagama/AFP/Getty Images

Bruno the baby hare is weighed, coming in at 80g – about the same as a basic computer mouse. Hailed a little miracle, Bruno was delivered from his dead mother in an emergency roadside caesarean after she was killed in a farming accident in Dumfries and Galloway
Photograph: Scottish SPCA/PA

Flamingos preparing to take flight are reflected on Lake Tuz, which hosts thousands of flamingos every year, in Ankara, Turkey. This year, the lake has seen a decline in flamingo numbers due to drought, prompting the birds to shift their migration route to other wetlands across Turkey
Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

A sea lion sleeps on the bow of a container ship at the Port of Los Angeles, California, US
Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

A hoverfly rests on the seed pod of a poppy flower in Dunsden, UK
Photograph: Geoffrey Swaine/Shutterstock

Minister of cunning … a fox plots its next move in Downing Street, London, during ministerial arrivals for a cabinet meeting at Number 10.
Photograph: Zuma Press/Alamy Live News

One of the four lynx that were illegally released into the Cairngorms National Park, Scotland, in January and rescued by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland. The three lynx that survived the ordeal have settled in to their new homes at the nearby Highland Wildlife Park, where this picture was taken. They have been named Caledonia, Cardrona and Bluebell, following a competition involving school children and charity donors
Photograph: RZSS/PA

A lucky puffin with a beakful of fish on Great Saltee Island off County Wexford. The island, one of Ireland’s major bird sanctuaries, is home to puffins, gannets, guillemots, razorbills, cormorants, great black-backed gulls, kittiwakes and manx shearwaters
Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

An alligator swims near the entrance to a temporary migrant detention centre in Ochopee, Florida, US, known as “Alligator Alcatraz” , on the day of Donald Trump’s visit
Photograph: Octavio Jones/Reuters

A kestrel finds food for its newly hatched chicks in Konya, Turkey
Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

A muskrat swims in Lake Issyk Kul, Kyrgyzstan
Photograph: Vyacheslav Oseledko/AFP/Getty Images

A weasel, rarely seen in the wild and under legal protection, peeks out from the rocks in Kars, Turkey
Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

A tawny owl and a wasp meet in West Yorkshire, UK
Photograph: David Driver/SWNS

A tussock moth rests on a leaf in a forest near Tehatta, West Bengal, India
Photograph: Soumyabrata Roy/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

A gannet carrying nesting material takes flight at Bempton Cliffs in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, UK
Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPA

A bee collects pollen from a thistle flower along the Thames Path near Reading, Berkshire, UK
Photograph: Geoffrey Swaine/Shutterstock

A sand lizard on Farnham Heath, Surrey, UK. The area, which is also home to nightjars, adders and natterjack toads, has been designated a protected area by Natural England: the 2,766-hectare Wealden Heaths national nature reserve
Photograph: Amphibian and Reptiles Conservation Trust/PA

Cygnets get a bird’s-eye view of the golf during the first round of the US Senior Open championship in Colorado Springs, Colorado, US
Photograph: Andrew Wevers/Getty Images

Two humpback whales breach off the coast of Port Stephens, north of Sydney, Australia
Photograph: Mark Baker/AP

An osprey flies with a fish clutched in its talons in Apopka, Florida, US
Photograph: Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
