The week in wildlife – in pictures

A marigold flower is reflected on a dew drop on the leaf of a paddy during the early morning in Lalitpur, India Photograph: Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters Lolong, a one-tonne, 6.4 metre, crocodile believed to be the biggest ever to have been caught, in a caged pen in the southern Philippine town of Bunawan. Deep inside the Philippines' largest marshland, tribespeople who once revered crocodiles as mystical creatures say they now feel terrorised by them Photograph: Jay Directo/AFP/Getty Images A Tui, a native bird of New Zealand, sits on a Kowhai tree at Mount Victoria, on the coast of Wellington, New Zealand Photograph: Marcos Brindicci/Reuters A bird flies off after attempting to land on a resting red deer stag after sunrise at Richmond Park in London. Autumn sees the start of the rutting season where the stags and bucks bellow in an attempt to attract females Photograph: Dan Istitene/Getty Images Polar bear and arctic gull at the floe edge, Lancaster Sound, Nunavut, Canada Photograph: Louise Murray/Rex Features Horses graze on a warm afternoon in Woodstock, in the US state of Maine. Tourists flock to the northeastern states during autumn to see the leaves turn red Photograph: CJ GUNTHER/EPA A Bennett's Tree-kangaroo hides in a wood near Marburg-Hermershausen, Hesse, Germany. Police said that the animal had escaped from a breeder Photograph: Andreas Schmidt/EPA Boobies nest on the Ballestas island, south of Lima in Peru. Along with 21 other islands, Ballestas is home to nearly 4 million migratory birds such as guanays, boobies and pelicans, whose excrement is said to make the world's finest natural fertiliser Photograph: Pilar Olivares/Reuters Geese fly over a field in Linum in the eastern German state of Brandenburg. The migratory birds rest in Linum before continuing their journey to southern Europe, where they will winter Photograph: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images A tightly-packed school of carp swims toward a stream entering Yeongnang Lake in the city of Sokcho on South Korea's east coast. The freshwater fish are believed to seek the fresh water of the stream because of contamination in the lake caused partly by an inflow of sea water and rises in temperature Photograph: Yonhap News Agency/EPA A view of a cut tree inside the 'green belt', outside the city of Niamey, in Niger. The green belt project was designed to stop the advance of the Sahel desert by creating a large protected forest area, but logging and illegal use of land have seen it halve, from 2,000 hectares to 1,000 Photograph: Boureima Hama/AFP/Getty Images Wild meerkats living in the Kalahari desert in southern Africa Photograph: University of Zurich The sounds piranhas use to communicate have been studied by researchers, revealing they bark before a fight Photograph: Alamy A juvenile common or Eurasian crane (Grus grus) taking off from a meadow in Somerset. About 400 years after their species disappeared from the UK, common cranes can once again be seen over the marshlands around Somerset. In 2010, a flock of 20 were released into the Somerset Levels as part of the Great Crane Project Photograph: NPL/Rex Features The solitary bee Halictus eurygnathus was last seen in Britain in 1946, but has now been found at seven sites in East Sussex , according to research by entomologist Steven Falk Photograph: Buglife/PA Volunteers take an oiled little blue penguin out of the pool after the recovering session at the wildlife facility in Tauranga, New Zealand. The penguins were rescued after the container ship Rena ran aground and began leaking fuel Photograph: Natacha Pisarenko/AP