A wallaby surprised a driver when it crossed the road in Liskeard, Cornwall. Scot Weller said: “I thought it was a German shepherd … then it got up and started bouncing towards the cattle market.” He pulled up alongside it and said: “Hello, you’re not from around here, are you?” No one is sure where it came from, but the RSPCA says wallabies are considered established in the wild in Britain as a result of escaping from captivity.
Rare breeding success
Montagu’s harriers, the UK’s rarest breeding bird, have nested at a secret location for the second year running – and have successfully reared six chicks. Last year, a pair nested in the same spot on farmland in England, raising four chicks in the first successful breeding for the bird of prey since 2019. This year, the male managed to breed with two new females, with the two nests a short distance apart.
Conservationists are also celebrating the birth of a “bounty of barn owl chicks” in Northern Ireland. Two barn owl pairs were found to have bred successfully on farm visits in Co Fermanagh this summer by Ulster Wildlife, each raising five chicks.
Rescues and encounters
An opossum was rescued after a wildfire in Coello, Colombia, appearing “a little frazzled but safe”. A pup was happily playing with a crab until it realised how sharp the pincers are – the two were spotted toying with each other on a street in Henan province, central China. While rolling around, the dog was caught off guard by the crab’s quick pincers and jumped back after its paw got pinched.
A hyena thief was caught on camera trap in western Tanzania, and a coyote crossed the street in the southern California town of Thousand Oaks.
Around the world
A manta ray glided through the clear water at Ras Mohamed marine national park on the Sinai peninsula, Egypt, and a marbled electric ray was seen in the depths of the same peninsula. A Siberian chipmunk was spotted on Geumjeongsan mountain, South Korea – the stripy rodents, which look remarkably like their North American cousins, are native to Russia and the far east, but have spread across Europe since people began buying them from South Korea as pets and zoo exhibits.
An alligator swam in a polluted urban waterway during a wildlife monitoring expedition conducted by researchers from the Instituto Jacaré in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Conservationists at the institute track animal movements, behaviour and health to assess how native species adapt to environmental degradation and habitat loss caused by urban expansion.
Conservation and climate
Little penguins – only 30cm tall – came ashore before being given a bird flu vaccination on Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia. The country is fighting the disease on many fronts, and experts fear penguin populations will suffer.
A polar bear gazed down through a breathing hole in the Arctic sea ice, north of Svalbard, Norway. This photograph, entitled Icy Window, is one of the finalists for Wildlife Photographer of the Year, an award developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.
Trout were seen in the River Test, a chalk stream in Stockbridge, England. These rare waterways, formed by springs in chalk bedrock, are often compared to rainforests in terms of their ecological importance, creating rich habitats for otter, kingfishers, trout, water voles and a wide range of plants such as water-crowfoot and flag iris.
