Week in wildlife in pictures: chilly pelicans, a baby gorilla and a spider fan’s dream come true

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

Main image: Upstanding citizen … a stoat on the shores of Kerkini lake, Greece. Photograph: Elias Marcou/Reuters

  • Pelicans rest on a rock in the lake in St James’s Park, London, during last week’s cold snap across the UK. The lake would have been frozen over if not for the fountain. Six great white pelicans live in the park and are free to come and go as they please
    Resident pelicans rest on the rock in the frozen lake in St James’s Park during the cold snap across the UK. Six great white pelicans, also known as eastern white pelicans, live in the park and are free to come and go as they please

  • A swan also looks a bit perplexed at a frozen lake in Kidderminster, UK
    A swan also looks a bit perplexed at a fozen lake in Kidderminster, UK.

  • Emperor penguins form an orderly queue as breeding season begins in Antarctica
    Emperor penguins mass arrival for breeding in Antarctica. It’s world penguin day on 25th January

  • Lexi, a Syrian brown bear, preparing for her first hibernation in the wild in Armenia. Lexi was discovered alone as a cub, crying in the branches of a tree, with her mother nowhere to be seen. She underwent extensive rehabilitation but with barely any human contact. In December she was released back into the wild
    Lexi the bear, in Armenia as she prepares for her first hibernation in the wild. Lexi was discovered alone as a cub with no sign of her mother. She underwent extensive rehabilitation, but with barely any human contact, to prepare them for her return to the wild. The bears regained their natural instincts through care, environmental enrichment, and careful observation. Since 2017, The Great Bear Rescue campaign, spearheaded by IAR and FPWC, has saved over 30 bears, providing them with compassionate care and the opportunity to return to the wild when possible.

  • This five-month-old male gorilla infant was rescued from the cargo hold of a plane at Istanbul Airport. He was found in a wooden box on a flight from Nigeria to Thailand. Named Zeytin (which means Olive), he is recovering well from his ordeal in the care of staff at Turkish zoo
    Zeytin, a 5-month-old male gorilla infant who was rescued at Istanbul Airport, looks on, in a specially created section of a zoo, in Istanbul, Turkey

  • A hopeful red fox hunts in a snowy field in Kars, Turkey
    A hopeful red fox hunts in snowy field in Kars, Turkey

  • A great blue heron catches a large vole before gulping it down in a roadside pasture near Elkton in rural southwestern Oregon, US. Herons usually eat aquatic prey (fish, shellfish, insects and so on), but in winter, some herons adapt by hunting rodents when rain-swollen rivers are running high and fast
    A great blue heron catches a large vole before gulping it down in a roadside pasture near Elkton in rural southwestern Oregon, US. In winter, some local herons adapt by hunting rodents when nearby rain-swollen rivers run high and fast

  • Bats cling on to the ceiling of a wooden hut at the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve in Singapore
    Bats cling on the ceiling of a wooden hut at the Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve in Singapore

  • A rabbit looks for food in an area burned by the Palisades fire, in Los Angeles, California, US
    A rabbit looks for food in an area burned by the Palisades Fire, in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, US

  • Reindeer walk the road in Kvaløya, an island in northern Norway
    Reindeer walk the road in Kvaloya, Norway

  • Volunteers clean up a bird drenched with oil after two tankers were damaged in a storm in the Kerch strait, which leads off the Black sea, in southern Russia
    Volunteers clean up a bird from oil following mid-December incident with two tankers damaged in a storm in the Kerch Strait, in the settlement of Vityazevo in the southern Russian Krasnodar region

  • A drone view shows manatees enjoying the warm-water outflows of Florida Power & Light Company’s power station in West Palm Beach, Florida, US. Researchers have recently found that manatees are relative newcomers, having only been present in the region for about 200 years
    A drone view shows manatees gathering in the warm-water outflows of Florida Power & Light Company’s power station at Manatee Lagoon in West Palm Beach, Florida, US

  • A long-eared owl perches on a tree in Nagyhegyes, north-eastern Hungary
    A long-eared owl perches on a tree in Nagyhegyes, northeastern Hungary. The Hungarian Ornithological and Nature Conservation Society conducts an annual nationwide survey on the wintering grounds of the long-eared owl, one of the most common owl species in Hungary, whose native population boosts during the winter months due to arrivals from further north

  • Seagulls pose for the camera at the Baltic Sea in Scharbeutz, northern Germany
    Seagulls fly at the Baltic Sea in Scharbeutz, northern Germany

  • A sea turtle recovers on a care barge off Tunisia’s Kerkennah Island, in the Mediterranean. Harbouring netted enclosures underwater, the barge is used to treat injured loggerhead turtles, allowing the threatened species to receive care in saltwater, its natural habitat. It is the first floating rehabilitation centre for the species
    A sea turtle recovers on a care barge in Tunisia’s Kerkennah Island, the only one in the Mediterranean. Harbouring netted enclosures underwater, the barge is used to treat injured loggerhead turtles, allowing the threatened species to receive care in saltwater, its natural habitat, and is the first floating rehabilitation centre for the species

  • Flamingoes feed at a beach in Kuwait City, Kuwait
    Flamingoes feed at a beach in Kuwait City, Kuwait

  • Kane Christensen, former head of spiders at the Australian Reptile Park, looks at a new species of funnel web spider that has been named after him, at the Australian Museum in Sydney: Atrax christenseni, nicknamed Big Boy
    Spider enthusiast and former Head of Spiders at the Australian Reptile Park Kane Christensen looks at a new species of funnel web spider named Atrax christenseni, after Christensen’s contributions to the research, and nicknamed ‘Big Boy’, at the Australian Museum in Sydney, Australia

  • A picturesque robin puffs up its feathers against the cold at the Bois de Vincennes park in eastern Paris, France
    A picturesque robin perches ona branc at the Bois de Vincennes park in eastern Paris, France

  • Gazelles graze near the Israel-Gaza border
    Gazelles graze near the Israel-Gaza border, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Israel,

  • A crocodile swims in a river at the Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve in Singapore
    A crocodile swims in a river at the Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve in Singapore

  • Pink flamingos are reflected in water at sunset in the Camargue natural park in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, southern France
    Pink flamingos are silhouetted and reflected in water at sunset in the Camargue regional natural park in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, Southern France

  • A stoat stands to attention on the shores of Kerkini lake, Greece
    A stoat stands to attention on the shores of Kerkini lake, Greece
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