The week in wildlife

Meal times can be a strenuous affair no matter what size your brood is, but spare a thought for the long-tailed tit captured on camera feeding her eleven chicks at the RSPB’s Fairburn Ings nature reserve this week
Photograph: Gary Shilton/RSPB

An endangered east African black rhinoceros and her young walk in Tanzania's Serengeti national park during the start of an initiative that will see 32 huge beasts flown to Tanzania from South Africa. An explosion in poaching in the 1960 and 70s saw the population of east African black rhinos in Tanzania plummet from over 1,000 to just 70. Seven of the remaining rhinos were relocated to South Africa in an effort to protect them and bring the rhino sub-species back from the brink of extinction
Photograph: Staff/Reuters

A roseate spoonbill passes below a tern over an island in the Barataria Bay on the Gulf coast of Louisiana. The island is home to thousands of brown pelicans, egrets and roseate spoonbills, many of which are now affected by oil after the Deepwater spill. Officials now say that it may be impossible to clean the hundreds of miles of coastal wetlands and islands
Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

An injured turtle at a clinic in Tortufauna in Costa Rica. Tortufauna is the first clinic in central and Latin America to specialise in providing treatment for injured tortoises and freshwater turtles. It receives an average of 80 turtles a month
Photograph: Juan Carlos Ulate/Reuters

Butterflies of the milkweed family sit on a tree branch in Bangalore. The demand for development and growing urban spaces is encroaching on the butterflies' natural habitats
Photograph: Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images

A male saiga in the steppe of Cherniye Zemly (Black Earth) nature reserve, Kalmykia, Russia. Around 12,000 endangered Saiga antelopes, killed by a suspected pasteurellosis infection, were found dead in Kazakhstan over the past few days, local media reported
Photograph: Igor Shpilenok/Wild Wonders

A pitta, an internationally endangered bird, found on a mountain on Goje island, South Gyeongsang province, South Korea
Photograph: GojeEco Tour / HO/EPA

Forest rangers patrol with elephants as part of a local government campaign against illegal logging in Jantho, Indonesia. This week rich and poor countries agreed on guidelines for releasing aid to save forests, in the first concrete sign of global action on climate change since Copenhagen
Photograph: Suparta/AFP/Getty Images

Male damselflies that have warmed their bodies in the sun are more attractive to their female counterparts, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Sheffield
Photograph: Michael Siva-Jothy/Department of Animal and Plant Sciences/University of Sheffield

The London Wetlands Centre in Barnes, south-west London, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Over the past decade the centre has become a biodiversity hotspot, home to more than 180 species of birds, small mammals, plants, amphibians and insects
Photograph: Graham Turner/Guardian

A pileated gibbon and its mother Ivy at Blackpool zoo. The range of the pileated gibbon in the wild is eastern Thailand, western Cambodia and south-west Laos
Photograph: Blackpool Zoo/PA

Tawny owl chicks sit on a tree branch at an artificial nest in a forest near village of Uzda, south of Minsk
Photograph: Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters

The flower of the echinopsis cactuc - commonly known as 'new dawn' - is displayed at the Chelsea flower show in London
Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

Alpine marmots in Hohe Tauern national park, Austria. Wild Wonders is a new exhibition to celebrate Europe's wildlife and landscapes
Photograph: Grzegorz Lesniewski/Wild Wonders of Europe

Birds take flight near an oil-covered shoreline in the Gulf of Mexico near Brush Island, Louisiana. As BP tries to stop the oil leak with a 'top kill' method, the Louisiana coastline is suffering from the effects of the continued gusher
Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

In this photo, a Eurasian griffon that sells for $650 poses for a portrait in a pet shop in Baghdad, Iraq. The sale of wildlife and trafficking of endangered species has been largely ignored by Iraq's government as it has struggled to make the country safer and even though the security situation has improved, it is still not a priority. Conservation groups warn at the same time, however, that the wildlife trade is on the increase as people have fewer concerns about going out shopping and more money to spend
Photograph: Maya Alleruzzo/AP

Pelicans fly past a nest of eggs on an island off the the coast of Louisiana. The island, which is home to hundreds of brown pelican nests as well at terns, gulls and roseate spoonbills has been affected by oil from the Deepwater spill
Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP