MAY. 
Tus is in all parts of India the most prolific season of the 
year. Nearly thirty kinds of birds of prey are still breeding, and 
almost all the non-climbing birds have commenced to lay. The shrikes, 
the common drongo, the large grey babbler, the doves, and the red 
wattled plover are now breeding in all parts of the country. 
In the Himatayas, the white scavenger vulture is still laying. 
The kestril, shikra, sparrow hawks, long-legged eagles, hawk eagles, 
serpent eagles, kites, wood owls, scops owls, owlets, mosque 
swallows, frogmouths, goatsuckers, European bee eater, rollers, and 
broadbills are laying. Most of the woodpeckers still have eggs, though 
for them it is late. The Marshall’s barbet begins laying, while the 
other barbets still have eggs. The cuckoos, honey suckers, flower- 
peckers, tree creepers, nuthatches, hoopoes, shrikes and drongos of 
all kinds, flyecatchers, wrens, shortwings, thrushes of all kinds, black- 
birds, ouzels, wren babblers, laughing thrushes, barwings, bulbuls, 
robins, bushchats, woodchats, water robins, reed warblers, tailor 
birds, warblers of all kinds, golden-crested wrens, forktails, wagtails, 
pipits, all the hill tits (Leiofrichine), true tits, hedge sparrows, 
crows, jays, magpies, starlings, mynahs, sparrows, buntings, gros- 
beaks, skylarks, pigeons, doves, pheasants, grouse, partridges, quail, 
plovers, woodcock, sandpipers, coots, bittern, herons, geese, ducks, 
and grebe have all begun to lay: while the rosy minivet, the red-billed 
wren warbler, the magpie sibia, the white-tailed ruby throat, the 
paddy field warbler, strong-footed hill warbler, the golden-breasted 
hill tit, Hodgson’s munia, the white-capped bunting, the speckled 
wood pigeon, Baillon’s crake, the little bittern and the whiskered tern 
have all begun to pair and build. 
In the Punsas, the red-headed merlins, the sand martin, the 
Egyptian bee eater, the rose-headed paroquet, the speckled piculet, 
the common bulbul, the magpie robins, the common bushchat, the 
bright starling, the pied mynah, the pin-tailed munia, the desert 
finch lark, the sand larks, the crested lark, the common sand- 
grouse, the black partridge, the chukor, the seesee, the grey partridge, 
the big bustard, the courier plover, the great stone plover, the stone 
