As has already been said, the nesting season is at its height in May. With the exception of the paroquets, spotted owlets, nuthatches, black vultures and pied kingfishers, which have completed nesting operations for the year, and the golden-backed woodpeckers and the cliff-swallows, which have reared up their first broods, the great majority of the birds mentioned as having nests or young in March or April are still busily occupied with domestic cares.
May marks the close of the usual breeding season for the jungle crows, skylarks, crested larks, finch-larks, wood-shrikes, yellow-throated sparrows, sand-martins, pied wagtails, green barbets, coppersmiths, rollers, green bee-eaters, white-breasted kingfishers, scavenger vultures, tawny eagles, kites, shikras, spur-winged plovers, little ringed plovers, pied woodpeckers, night herons and pied chats. In the case of the tree-pies, cuckoo-shrikes, seven sisters, bank-mynas and blue-tailed bee-eaters the nesting season is now at its height. All the following birds are likely to have either eggs or nestlings in May: the white-eyes, ioras, bulbuls, tailor-birds, shrikes, brown rock-chats, Indian robins, magpie-robins, sunbirds, swifts, nightjars, white-eyed buzzards, hoopoes, green pigeons, blue rock-pigeons, doves, sparrows, the red and yellow wattled lapwings, minivets, wire-tailed swallows, red-headed merlins, fantail flycatchers, pipits, sand-grouse and grey partridges. The nests of most of these have been described already.
In the present month several species begin nesting operations. First and foremost among these is the king-crow or black drongo (Dicrurus ater). No bird, not even the roller, makes so much ado about courtship and nesting as does the king-crow, of which the love-making was described last month. A pair of king-crows regards as its castle the tree in which it has elected to construct a nest. Round this tree it establishes a sphere of influence into which none but a favoured few birds may come. All intruders are forthwith set upon by the pair of little furies, and no sight is commoner at this season than that of a crow, a kite, or a hawk being chased by two irate drongos. The nest of the king-crow is a small cup, wedged into the fork of a branch high up in a tree.
The Indian oriole (Oriolus kundoo) is one of the privileged creatures allowed to enter the dicrurian sphere of influence, and it takes full advantage of this privilege by placing its nest almost invariably in the same tree as that of the king-crow. The oriole is a timid bird and is glad to rear up its family under the ægis of so doughty a warrior as the Black Prince of the Birds. The nest of the oriole is a wonderful structure. Having selected a fork in a suitable branch, the nesting bird tears off a long strip of soft pliable bark, usually that of the mulberry tree. It proceeds to wind one end of this strip round a limb of the forked branch, then the other end is similarly bound to the other limb. A second and a third strip of bark are thus dealt with, and in this manner a cradle or hammock is formed. On it a slender cup-shaped nest is superimposed. This is composed of grasses and fibres, some of which are wound round the limbs of the forked branch, while others are made fast to the strands of bark. The completed nest is nearly five inches in diameter. From below it looks like a ball of dried grass wedged into the forked branch.
The oriole lays from two to four white eggs spotted with dull red. The spots can be washed off by water; sometimes their colour "runs" while they are in the nest, thereby imparting a pink hue to the whole shell. Both sexes take part in nest construction, but the hen alone appears to incubate. She is a very shy creature, and is rarely discovered actually sitting, because she leaves the nest with a little cry of alarm at the first sound of a human footfall.
May and June are the months in which to look for the nests of that superb bird—the paradise flycatcher (Terpsiphone paradisi). This is known as the rocket-bird or ribbon-bird because of the two long fluttering tail feathers possessed by the cock. The hen has the appearance of a kind of bulbul, being chestnut-hued with a white breast and a metallic blue-black crest. For the first year of their existence the young cocks resemble the hens in appearance. Then the long tail feathers appear. In his third year the cock turns white save for the black-crested head. This species spends the winter in South India. In April it migrates northwards to summer in the shady parts of the plains of Bengal, the United Provinces and the Punjab, and on the lower slopes of the Himalayas. The nest is a deep, untidy-looking cup, having the shape of an inverted cone. It is always completely covered with cocoons and cobweb. It is usually attached to one or more of the lower branches of a tree. Both sexes work at the nest and take part in incubation. The long tail feathers of the sitting cock hang down from the nest like red or white satin streamers according to the phase of his plumage. In the breeding season the cock sings a sweet little lay—an abridged version of that of the fantail flycatcher. When alarmed both the cock and the hen utter a sharp tschit.
May is perhaps the proper month in which to describe the nesting of the various species of myna.
According to Hume the normal breeding season of the common myna (Acridotheres tristis) lasts from June to August, during which period two broods are reared. This is not correct. The nesting season of this species begins long before June. The writer has repeatedly seen mynas carrying twigs and feathers in March, and has come across nests containing eggs or young birds in both April and May. June perhaps is the month in which the largest numbers of nests are seen. The cradle of the common myna is devoid of architectural merit. It is a mere conglomeration of twigs, grass, rags, bits of paper and other oddments. The nesting material is dropped haphazard into a hole in a tree or building, or even on to a ledge in a verandah. Four beautiful blue eggs are laid.
At Peshawar Mr. A. J. Currie once found four myna's eggs in a deserted crows' nest in a tree.