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 aegis 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.