Trees And Shrubs:

By May the blackthorn flowers are over and have turned brown, but the white blossom of hawthorn, also called may  blossom, is a predominant feature across the countryside and brightens up even the most uninspiring roads! The blossom can look like fizzy shaving foam on some bushes! Shakespeare’s phrase ‘darling buds of May’ refers to the opening buds of the May tree. With climate change it is flowering earlier, but the ‘darling buds of April’ just doesn’t have the same appeal!

Towards to end of the month the elder is in flower with its large flat-topped saucers made up of hundreds of tiny white perfumed flowers – take a close look.

All kinds of trees break into leaf, including beech, oak and ash, remember the saying “oak before ash in for a splash, ash before oak in for a soak”. The young oak leaves start off brown, then turn light green and only later on do they go darker green.  The ash is one of the last trees to burst into leaf.

Plants:

The white flowers of cow parsley and sweetly-scented meadowsweet adorn the hedgerows and roadside verges.

Bluebells, cowslips and fritillaries are also distinctive highlights of early May, together with cuckooflower or lady’s smock upon which the female orange tip butterfly lays her eggs. The British Isles support as much as 50% of the world’s bluebells & nowhere else has such spectacular displays.

In the damper woods bluebells are often mixed with, or replaced by, the white flowers and wide leaves of ramsons. Ramsons small strongly of garlic when crushed and are also known as wild garlic.

A diversity of grasses come into flower in the ungrazed meadows and will be harvested later in the year as hay. Look out for ragged robin in damp meadows, its deep pink petals lookes like they have been shredded with scissors!

Cotton-grass (which is actually a sedge) can dominate wet bogs on the hills an in lowland mosses and its fluffy white ‘flowers’ resemble cotton wool balls floating above the surface.

Red poppies may appear on disturbed ground or in an untilled patch of agricultural land. The scarlet streaks or fields of poppies can be seen from miles away. Their petals are paper-thin and fall off almost immediately if they are picked, so it’s best to leave them alone.

Red campion and greater stitchwort replace the early spring flowers. Another plant associated with the cuckoo is the cuckoopint, which is also called lords-and-ladies. The dark green arrow-head leaves contrast with the erect yellow tubular flower which is called a spathe. This is the ‘lord’ part but you have to wait until August before the ‘lady’ appears!

Also look out for sweet woodruff, marsh marigold, sweet cicely, pignut, yellow rattle, bush vetch, common-spotted orchids, oxeye daisy, wood and germander speedwells.

Birds:

Only in May do all the singing bird species arrive so get out very early to hear the full glory of the dawn chorus (*). Listen out for the explosive songs of blackcaps, garden warblers and wrens.

Swifts and martins join the other migrants, including whitethroats and warblers, that have already arrived in the UK. In the first week of May listen out for the screeching sound swifts make as they chase each other over the rooftops. Their silhouettes look like boomerangs in the sky.  They return from Africa to breed in the UK to breed and this may be the only time the swifts ever land! Swifts drink, sleep, mate, bathe, preen, feed and collect nesting material all without landing and after the breeding season they don’t land until the next year!

Look out for hole nesting greater spotted woodpeckers (you are more likely to hear them drumming before you se them). Their old nests can be re-used by birds such as tits, redstarts and starlings.

Heathland birds such as whinchats and stonechats clack from the tops of bushes, showing off their bright orange coloured breasts.

If you see a wild swan during the month of May it will be a mute swan as the other species have left the UK . Adults can weigh over 15kg and the mute swan is the largest bird in the UK and one of the heaviest flying birds in the world! They are called mute swans because they make very little noise compared to other swans. They do however make a hissing noise when threatened and a have a snorting ‘heeorr’ call.

Garden birds such as blue tit, great tit, robin, blackbird and song thrush lead frantic lives in search of food for the insatiable appetites of their young.  Blue tits in particular can look “frazzled” after one or two broods.

Mammals:

If you hear grunting and snorting in your garden during warm nights in May it could be hedgehogs mating! Baby hedgehogs are called hoglets and are blind and bald when they are born. Their eyes open after 10 days or so but white spines start to grow within hours of being born! As the hoglets grow, brown spines replace the white ones. Did you know that an adult hedgehog has up to 6000 spines?

As the insect population has now increased bats are out in force swooping through the air using their sophisticated echo-location technique to home in and catch them.

Amphibians And Reptiles:

The early frog tadpoles and some toad tadpoles start to metamorphose into frog and toadlets so look out for any that have developed legs. Adult frogs leave the ponds.

Invertebrates:

The short-lived adult mayflies emerge after spending a year underwater as a nymph, only to mate and then die after 24 hours.  Rather appropriately their Latin name is based on the word ephemeral!  Mayflies need clean water and are good biological indicator of a clean environment as well as an important food source for many species of fish, including trout.

Insects are incredibly abundant, from cockchafer beetles and dragonflies to aphids and mayflies, and provide an important source of food.

Dragonflies and damselflies emerge on warm days in May. The different species of dragonfly can be divided into two groups: the hawkers and the darters depending upon the way they hunt. Hawkers have long thin bodies and they patrol up and down looking out for prey upon which they swoop. Darters have short fat bodies and they perch on plants waiting for prey to come past when they dart out and catch them.  Damselflies have thin bodies similar to the hawkers, but are less powerful fliers. The best way to tell the difference between dragonflies and damselflies is to look at their wings at rest: dragonflies stretch their wings out at 90 degrees whereas damselflies fold their wings backwards against their bodies.

Common blue butterflies feed on the flowers and lay their eggs on members of the pea family, especially bird’s-foot-trefoil. The adults only live three weeks but there can be three generations in one year so you can get another chance to see them if you miss them first time round.