The week in wildlife

A baby baboon clings to its mother, with the receding shore of lake Nakuru in Kenya in the background. A drought has swept across east Africa, leaving 23 million people in need of food aid this year, according to Oxfam Photograph: Khalil Senosi/AP

A large flock of flamingos wading in Laguna Colorada, located within the Eduardo Abaroa Andean National Fauna reserve near the border with Chile, in the Uyuni salt flats, Bolivia. The Uyuni salt flats are estimated to contain 10bn tonnes of salt – of which 25,000 tonnes are extracted every year – as well as 100m tonnes of lithium, making it one of the largest global reserves of this mineral, according to officials at the Bolivian Mining Corporation. The salt flats are a major tourist attraction in Bolivia, with around 60,000 tourists visiting them every year to see various types of flamingos, giant cacti, geysers, hot springs, volcanoes and colourful ponds Photograph: Martin Bernetti/guardian.co.uk

A duck preens itself on Loch Faskally, as autumn leaves are reflected in the water by the evening sun, Perthshire, Scotland Photograph: Russell Cheyne/Reuters

A rainbow lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus) at Katandra Treetops park in Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife. The rainbow lorikeet is a species of Australasian parrot, whose habitat is rainforest, coastal bush and woodland areas Photograph: Santiago Ferrero/Reuters

A male red headed agama, also known as the red headed rock agama, stands on a rock in the Kenyan coastal town of Mombasa. The lizards grow up to 15 inches long. The males' colour changes based on its mood, often caused by aggression Photograph: Sayyid Azim/AP

A bird lands on a balcony, Israel Photograph: Yannis Behrakis/Reuters

Autumn leaves fall on to a frosted glass roof in Kaufbeuren, Germany Photograph: Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/EPA

Black vertical scars, damage from an infestation of bark beetles, on logs that have been stripped of their bark in the monarch butterfly reserve near Ocampo, Mexico. After decades of trying to stop logging in Mexico's monarch butterfly reserve, biologists and park workers are having to cut down thousands of fir trees themselves, to combat an unprecedented infestation of bark beetles they say may have been brought about by climate change Photograph: Gregory Bull/AP

Mushrooms grow in the foliage in the woods of Tiergarten park in Berlin Photograph: Theo Heimann/AFP/Getty Images

Bjork the bear in the newly built bear park in Bern. The new bear park was built to replace the old bear pit, which dateed back to the year 1857 Photograph: Michael Buholzer/Reuters

Autumn colours at their finest as a sightseeing boat cruises around a small cape in Lake Chuzenji in Nikko, Japan Photograph: Akiko Matsushita/AP

A group of birds on the corpse of a 15-metre blue whale, washed up on a beach at the Punta Estereo residential area in Ensenada, Mexico Photograph: Alejandro Zepeda/EPA

An endangered blue-sided leaf frog (Agalychnis annae) at National Biodiversity Institute of Costa Rica Photograph: Kent Gilbert/AP

Banana trees are reflected on nearly month-long floodwaters after typhoons in Taguig, Philippines. The World Health Organization has deployed an emergency team to help the country deal with a deadly outbreak of a flood-borne bacterial disease, which has killed more than a hundred people Photograph: Aaron Favila/AP

Two of the puffs of smoke rising from an underground fire in Las Tablas de Daimiel national park in Spain. Several teams of firemen are fighting the flames, which continue to burn underground. Experts say the only way to extinguish the fire is to flood the many hectares of soil that is burning Photograph: Mariano Cieza/EPA

Cranes feed on a farmer's harvested cornfield near Linum, Germany. The marshland near Linum becomes host to up to 80,000 cranes every year on their migratory route from Scandinavia to southern France and Spain. The cranes spend a good portion of the autumn feeding on local, cultivated fields and sleeping in the expansive wetlands, and in the spring they come again on their return journey north Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

A damselfly poses on top of a garden plant Photograph: Christopher Schlaf/Solent News & Photo

Deer during the rutting season at Raby Castle, Durham Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Up to 1986, this bird hadn't been seen for over three decades. Now researchers in south-east Asia estimate there are several thousand territories of the multi-coloured Gurney's pitta in Thailand and Myanmar A recent paper published online in BirdLife’s journal Bird Conservation International, provides strong evidence that the global population of Gurney's pitta – a starling-sized bird of lowland rainforests - is much greater than was previously estimated.  However, conservationists also warn that with the loss of lowland forest to oil palm plantations the bird’s future is far from secure. Photograph: Paul Hopkins /RSPB