Animals and Birds

A pair of yellow-headed amazon parrots rest inside the nursery area of the Birds International Inc, Breeding and Research Centre in Quezon City, Philippines. The facility breeds around 2,000 to 3,000 parrots of various species a year and aims to ensure the conservation and preservation of rare and endangered parrot species A false clown anemonefish shelters among the tentacles of a sea anemone at Misool Eco Resort on Batbitim Island in Southern Raja Ampat, West Papua, Indonesia Binta the lion plays with her cub in the lion enclosure at Hanover Zoo Employee Christina Kosorygina weighs a one-month-old jaguar cub at Leningrad city zoo in St. Petersburg. Black male jaguar Rock and spotted female jaguar Agnessa had three jaguars cubs - two spotted and one black - on March 15, 2011 Bernd Hensch (left) director of Brandenburg Zoo in Eberswalde, northern Germany, and Mayor Friedhelm Boginski hold baby Siberian Tiger twins. They were born on 28 February 2011 but they have yet to be named. Within the next 2-3 weeks the twins will be returned to their parents Indira, a white Bengal tiger, is seen inside a cage at Cali Zoo in Colombia A lion rests inside his enclosure at the Nehru Zoological Park in Hyderabad, India The recent weather at Noahs Ark Zoo Farm in Bristol seems to have had a warming effect on the relationships between some of the animals. The zoo's male giraffe Gerald has amused visitors and staff by making close friends with the zebra family. The family of three Chapmans zebra - named Zebedee, Zara and Zelda - and the giraffes share a spacious paddock in the African continental section of North Somerset's award-winning family park. A springbok has a nasty tumble after challenging a love rival to a fight. The clumsy creature had taken on an older male in a spat over territory during the mating season. In one impressive move, he was lifted from the ground and flipped in the air. The shot was captured by Jaco Becker, a head ranger at the Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa.  A deer rears up on her hind legs to protect her young calf from a stag during a boxing match. Photographer Paul Sawer took the picture in RSPB Minsmere nature reserve in Suffolk. A female brown hare (L) jumps to avoid a male brown hare (R) as he shows off his fighting prowess to woo her in Leitholm, Berwickshire on the Scottish borders Two burly brown bears show amazing lightness of feet as they 'tango' in their enclosure at the BearForest in Stuer, Germany Aurora and Victoria, two one-year-old female polar bear cubs, dive in a swimming pool which was filled with water for the first time this spring at the Royev Ruchey zoo in Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. The wild polar bear cubs were found in Russia's Taimyr Peninsula on the Arctic Ocean coast in May 2010 and were later housed at the zoo in Krasnoyarsk. A pair of lambs sit in the shade of a tree among daffodils at the Hall Farm in Stratford St Mary, Suffolk A zoo keeper holds baby orangutan Boo, a nine-month-old orphan, as he plays with a toy at the Madrid Zoo & Aquarium. Boo was born on July 5 2010 but lost his mother, Pundu, when he was only seven months old. Now 10-months-old, Boo is responding well to efforts by zoo keepers who are trying to get one of the female orangutans to adopt him.  A 3-month-old white-cheeked baby gibbon holds onto his mother, Burma, at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo. The zoo confirmed the baby gibbon, born in January 2011, was a boy and announced that his name is Sai. It means "son" in Taiwanese A white-naped mangabey called Hope is giving hope to a species of primate ravaged by deforestation and poaching in the wild. ZSL London Zoo is at the forefront of breeding the endangered monkeys, as part of the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP), and is now home to the largest breeding group in Europe. In the past 27 years deforestation and hunting in countries like Ghana have devastated wild white-naped mangabey populations by at least 50 per cent, so captive babies like Hope are extremely important Ruby, a 10 year old chimp, pushes a lawnmower at Monkey Town animal park in Cape Town, South Africa. The green-fingered ape mows the lawn, rakes the grass, loads a wheelbarrow with straw, digs with a spade, sweeps up and gets rid of garden waste in a wheelie bin... ...Ruby fills a wheelbarrow with straw at Monkey Town animal park in Cape Town. Manager Rene Grobler, 30, said Ruby and her chimp chums observed the tourist attraction's groundskeepers at work on their small island home and began mimicking them through their desire to use tools. Intelligent chimps are known in the wild to use tools, like using sticks to reach deep inside termite nests and using rocks to crush seeds and nuts. A hippopotamus yawns at Mumbai Zoo in India A day-old baby rhino, weighing between 50 and 60 kilograms, is pictured with her mother Cabelle, an endangered Southern White Rhinoceros, at the Australia Zoo near Brisbane An elephant paints on a t-shirt at Hanover Zoo in Germany Three elephants perform tricks in their enclosure at Hanover Zoo in Germany A tiny month-old Egyptian tortoise is pictured next to a grape at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo, Bedfordshire. He is part of a small litter born to a group of tortoises seized by HM Customs and Excise last year that were destined for the illegal pet trade. A seven-year-old Philippine Eagle (Pithecopaga jefferyi) named Binay displays its feathers at the Philippine Eagle Centre on the outskirts of Davao City, on the island of Mindanao. The giant forest raptor is endemic to the Philippines and is one of the largest and most powerful eagles in the world. It is however, also one of the world's rarest and most critically endangered, with only 500 pairs remaining in the wild. A duck in Beijing wears a pair of shoes made by its owner to protect its webbed feet on the street