Week in wildlife: A rare chameleon, friendly starlings and hot buffaloes

Canada goslings enjoy the warm sunshine in a pond at Kew Gardens, in west London

A purple sunbird perches on a flower stem on the outskirts of Ajmer, India

A butterfly at the Tropical Butterfly Garden in Konya, Turkey. The garden hosts about 20,000 butterflies from 60 species, along with tropical plants and insects

A red kite hunts near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, UK

Buffaloes cool off in a canal on a hot summer day in Larkana, Sindh province, Pakistan

A drosera capensis plant traps an insect at the Botanical Garden in Bogota, Colombia

Visitors to the Vatican pose next to a mallard duck on the cobblestones of St Peter’s Square, with St Peter’s Basilica in the background

Lichen in a UK forest. Conservationists are fighting to restore and expand the last fragments of the UK’s rare temperate rainforest. The globally rare habitat once swathed the western coasts of England, Wales, Scotland, the island of Ireland and the Isle of Man

A sika deer pauses under blossom at Nara Park, Japan. The park, established in 1880, is home to many wild animals and plant species. Sika deer, a species native to East Asia and numbering more than 1,200, are among the symbols of the park and live among the sakura trees

Could elk return to Britain? A UK charity, Rewilding Britain, has said restoring keystone species such as beaver, elk and bison is crucial to bringing nature back to life in the UK. Reintroducing missing species could help repair natural systems and benefit wildlife, people and climate, it said, as it announced the latest round of funding for rewilding initiatives

A ladybird perches on a flower in Ankara, Turkey

A Belalanda chameleon in Madagascar, where researchers found a small group of the critically endangered animal where it had never been previously recorded. Among the world’s rarest reptiles, the Belalanda chameleon has one of the most restricted ranges of any animal – roughly 4 sq km – and most of its forest habitat has been destroyed. The researchers discovered two males and a female at a new location around 5km outside the creatures’ usual range. Work is under way to help find and protect any remaining chameleons and their habitat

A stork, which built its nest on the minaret of the 14th-century Akincilar Masjid, feeds its chicks, in the Selçuk district of Izmir, Turkey. Each spring, storks migrate to the Selcuk area, which is known for its rich natural and historical beauty

Adam Abdulahi Ali, 20, feeds stray dogs in a culture where animals are often neglected or seen as unclean, in the Wabari district of Mogadishu, Somalia

Flamingos on a stopover at Lake Mogan near Ankara, Turkey. They come to the region’s wetlands and reeds every year during migration periods

Birds of a feather flock together. Starlings form friendships to help one another with breeding, a study has found. Researchers have found that starlings get help in feeding or guarding their chicks, returning the favour when the ‘helper’ bird has offspring of its own