In the first week of May listen out for the screaming of swifts as they chase each other over the rooftops. Their silhouettes make the shape of boomerangs against the sky.  Swifts return from Africa to the UK to breed. Amazingly, this may be the only time the swifts ever land. After the breeding season they spend a whole year airborne! Swifts drink, sleep, mate, bathe, preen, feed and collect nesting material all without landing.

If you hear grunting and snorting in your garden during warm nights in the month of May it may well be hedgehogs mating. Finding a mate is the number one priority of a male emerging from hibernation. Baby hedgehogs (hoglets) are bald and blind when they are born. The eyes open when they are about 10 days old. Within the first few hours after birth small, white spines will start to grow. As hoglets grow brown spines will replace the white spines. Did you know that a fully grown hedgehog can have up to 6000 spines!

The white blossom of the hawthorn tree looks like fizzy shaving foam decorating our landscape. It is during the month of May that it is in full froth which gives the tree its other popular name ‘May’. Shakespeare’s phrase ‘darling buds of May’ refers to the opening buds of the May tree. Global warming has changed the climate in the UK and as a result May is now flowering earlier, but it is doubtful that the ‘darling buds of April’ will ever catch on!

Dragonflies and damselflies emerge during warm days in May. There are many different species of dragonfly in the UK but they can all be divided into two groups: the hawkers and the darters. This describes the way they hunt. Hawkers have long, thin bodies and they patrol up and down looking out for prey on which to swoop. Darters have fat, short bodies and they perch on reeds waiting for the prey to come past when they dart out and catch them.  Damselflies are related to dragonflies and have thin bodies similar to the hawkers. However, they are less powerful fliers. The best way to tell the difference between dragonflies and damselflies is to look at what they do with their wings when they rest. Dragonflies hold their wings out flat whereas damselflies hold their wings upright above their bodies like butterflies.

If you see a swan during the month of May it will be a mute swan. The mute swan is UK’s largest bird and one of the heaviest flying birds in the world; adults can weigh over 15kg. They are called mute swans because they make very little noise compared to other species of swan. However, they have a few distinctive calls, such as a hissing noise when threatened and a snorting ‘heeorr’ call. In flight its wings make a loud throbbing ‘waou, waou….’

Adult pond skaters emerge in early May. The common pond skater is the most widespread British bug. Pond skaters use water as a web. They have four sensitive, long legs that rest on the water surface. When insects fall into the water, the pond skater uses its legs to detect the vibrations from the struggling insect. It then uses its long legs to propel itself along the surface of the water towards the vibrations to find its prey. Try twisting a piece of grass in the water, the same response will happen.

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