Herts Bird Club

May is the most verdant month of the year and while that makes it one of the most beautiful times of year to be out birding it also presents some challenges!  The leafy cover suddenly obscures birds in thick vegetation making it much harder to pin down elusive migrants and songsters while birds also, taking advantage of the cover, quieten down as they go about the business of breeding.

May can be a month of two halves and in many ways in represents a fulcrum, with the first part offering the same excitement of late April with Spring migrants arriving every day and the latter half of the month proving quieter as movement tails off and breeding gets underway.

Arriving back the latest of all our Spring migrants are the Spotted Flycatchers – a bird that has sadly undergone a huge decline over the last few decades but still returns to breed at many of its traditional haunts.  Their presence is often first given away by their noisy and harsh ‘tsick’ calls but scanning the tops and outlying branches of tall trees at woodland edges or in gardens may reveal a passing bird.

Many of our other summer visitors continue to arrive with Swifts becoming a regular feature of our skies once again along with Hobbies timing their arrival, not just with the Swifts and hirundines, but also with the emergence of juicy St Mark’s Flies followed by their food staple – dragon and damselflies.  Ring Ouzels, Wheatears and Whinchats continue to pass through and remain a possibility right to the end of the month.

Early May can be a good time to find passage waders with many still on the move.  Common Sandpipers are most likely to be encountered and while lake and reservoir margins are the favoured habitats they can be found at the edge of rivers or even heard flying over at night.  With them, Dunlin, Greenshank, Redshank and Whimbrel are also possible while Grey Plover, Sanderling, Little Stint and Wood Sandpiper are less frequent.  Our over-wintering Green Sandpipers will largely have left but passage birds are still possible in early May.

May is also the best month to look for Dotterel and Temminck’s Stints.  While both birds remain very rare in the county regular checking of suitable habitat might just reward the diligent.  Dotterel classically favour high ground and big open arable fields while Temminck’s Stints are more likely to be found at gravel pit margins.

As always, waterbodies are focal points and will be teeming with insect life in May.  Terns continue to move through with Black and Arctic Terns being a particular target among their more familiar Common Tern cousins.  Garganey are also a possibility along with a chance of a Black-necked Grebe.  A bird that may turn up near water but also in any area of mature woodland is the Wood Warbler.  While an increasingly rare bird across Britain, the month of May is perhaps the best time to find one on passage in Herts.

Aside from migrating birds May is also the peak breeding time with many resident birds already on their second broods and new arrivals quickly getting to nesting after courtship.  It is a great time to survey breeding birds whether via an official survey such as the long-running BTO’s Breeding Bird Survey or more informally by simply reporting breeding records.  Records of breeding, be it attempted or successful, are vital in building up and maintaining a picture of bird populations’ health.  Selecting the ‘Breeding Status’ drop-down list when entering records at this time of year can add value to any records submitted to the Herts Bird Club website.

Of course, discretion is vital when observing and recording breeding birds so as to avoid disturbance, but May is a month when breeding birds and their offspring are very much in evidence.  Whether it is nesting grebes or swans at the water’s edge, Robins feeding young in the garden or squeaking Tawny Owlets in the woods, May is bursting with new life and quiet observation can bring the rewards of seeing birds courting, nesting and raising young.

As always, getting out and spending time on the local patch or in the garden will increase the chances of finding birds, be they breeding or just passing through.  May has produced some rarities and being the breeding season, these often are at their very best, resplendent in breeding plumage.

Past May Rarities:

Kentish Plover – Pitstone (2017)

Night Heron - Hilfield Park Reservoir (2023)

Purple Heron – Amwell (2021)

Red-necked Phalarope – Tring Reservoirs (2020)

Roseate Tern – Tring Reservoirs (2016)