Print this page using your browser menu option, then click here to return

Birding in May 2010

Love is in the air, our two love sick Mallards have returned once again to our garden pond. They spend their time billing and cooing sweet nothings to each other every evening. She will shortly build a nest from leaves and grasses and line it with down plucked from her breast. The eggs are normally laid between now and the end of July. The normal clutch is about 12 eggs, laid at one to two day intervals. If you are fortunate to find a nestful of duck eggs, leave it well alone; it is unlikely to have been abandoned. The laying period is very stressful for the female as she lays more than half her body weight in eggs in a couple of weeks. She needs a lot of rest and depends heavily on her mate to protect her and their feeding and loafing areas. Most people welcome ducks nesting in their garden. You can encourage them with nesting baskets or boxes. The female should be able to find food for herself while she incubates, but you could put out a bowl of drinking water, together with duck pellets and cooked potatoes for her to eat. Put these in an accessible area some distance from the nest.

The month of May marks the last of our summer visitors arriving, and new sounds are heard in our countryside, but you can’t believe in summer until you here the screaming. That sudden crazed sound from high above, the cricking of the neck in delight, the sight of that sickle-shape mowing the sky in great swaths. Swifts, they're back, which means the earth’s still working. House Martins are also back in our parish, flying about making clicker like calls. They attach their mud nests to walls beneath overhanging eaves.

After a lull we have noticed our Song Thrushes are singing again in the treetops as vigorously as ever, with many varied phrases in their repertoire. These are male birds that have been busy finding a mate and then watching over her while she builds the nest. Now many females are sitting on eggs, and the male has time to sing again, keeping rivals out of his territory and away from his mate, in case she proves fickle. The nest is bulky and deep, and is built in a hedge or shrub. Unlike the nests of most small birds, it is not lined with feathers or other soft material, but simply has a floor of smooth, dried mud. However, the four or five eggs seem to come to no harm. They are a rather beautiful pale blue with a few black spots. When they hatch there will be another break in the male’s singing, since he will help to feed the young. After that, the pair may have another brood or even two, and the male will go on singing intermittently until July.

Meanwhile the Blackbirds are nesting in our garden hedges they are laying eggs in some of them, in others the females are sitting on the eggs, while some have both of the parents feeding the young birds in them. The cycle from egg-laying to the fledging of the young usually takes just over a month. After that, the nest will not be used again, and the parents will build a new nest for a further brood. Male blackbirds are singing, and their lazy-sounding, fluting notes carry a long way when the air is still. These singing males are mostly birds whose mates are on the nest, which leaves the males little else to do. They will be as hard-working as the females in feeding the young when the time comes, but even then they will still find some time to sing and defend their territories. They are particularly vocal at dawn and at sunset, when it is too dark for them to be able to find the worms that they and their offspring need.

We are pleased to report a number of sightings of Swallows and a Goshawk by our readers, as yet no Cuckoo. Full details next issue.

D. H.