Florida Nature Guide: May 2026
May closes out spring migration and ushers in the heat — the last warblers pass through, the seabird colony at the Dry Tortugas is at full cry, and the wet season's first thunderstorms build. Tropical fruit trees flower, the summer butterfly broods take over, and the warm humid nights still hold the deep galaxy fields of late spring.
What to look for this week
- The Christmas Bird Count season peaks across Florida, with Merritt Island and the Everglades tallying huge numbers of wintering ducks, spoonbills, and wood storks.
- The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks in a brief, sharp burst around January 3 — best after midnight from the dark Kissimmee Prairie or Big Cypress.
- The cool-season vegetable garden is in full production statewide; harvest broccoli, collards, and lettuce, and keep frost cloth ready in the north.
Birds This Month
May ends the great spring push and settles Florida into its breeding summer. Early May still brings late migrants — Blackpoll, Bay-breasted, Cape May, and Mourning Warblers, Yellow-billed Cuckoos, and Common Nighthawks — through the coastal hammocks and migrant traps, while the Dry Tortugas seabird colony reaches its peak, with thousands of Sooty Terns and Brown Noddies nesting on Bush Key and Magnificent Frigatebirds and boobies overhead. Beach-nesting Least Terns, Black Skimmers, Wilson's and Snowy Plovers, and American Oystercatchers are tending eggs and chicks on the barrier islands.
The summer breeders are in full song. Swallow-tailed and Mississippi Kites soar over the south Florida and Panhandle forests, Painted and Indigo Buntings, Northern Parula, Yellow-throated and Prothonotary Warblers, Summer Tanagers, and Great Crested Flycatchers sing in the woods. The wading-bird rookeries hold large young at Corkscrew and the south Florida colonies, the endemic Florida Scrub-Jay feeds fledglings in the scrub, and Limpkins and Snail Kites work the central marshes. Northern Mockingbirds, the state bird, and Chuck-will's-widows call through the warm nights.
What's Blooming
May carries Florida's wildflowers from spring into the wet-season bloom. The state wildflower, coreopsis (tickseed), still blazes along roadsides and through the flatwoods, joined by blanketflower, black-eyed Susan, beach sunflower, beautyberry coming into flower, and the climbing passionflower opening its intricate purple blooms. The wet prairies and marsh edges begin their summer show as the first storms arrive — string-lily (swamp lily), pickerelweed, and arrowhead open in the shallows.
The pine flatwoods and savannas come alive with the rains — meadowbeauty, pawpaw, yellow-eyed grass, and the carnivorous sundews and pitcher plants of the Panhandle bogs. South Florida's tropical hammocks and pinelands keep their firebush, beach sunflower, scorpionstail, tropical sage, and railroad vine on the dunes, and the spectacular flowering trees peak — purple jacaranda, golden tabebuia, and the first scarlet royal poinciana. Gardens overflow with pentas, salvia, firebush, plumbago, gaillardia, and the fragrant gardenia and magnolia of the early summer.
Garden This Month
May is the transition from Florida's productive cool-and-dry season into the hot, wet, low-growing summer — the gardener's challenging 'off-season.' In the north and central regions, harvest the last of the spring tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, beans, and sweet corn before the rising heat and humidity bring the fungal blights and pests that end the spring crops. The dry season breaks this month as the first afternoon thunderstorms build, and the rains take over the watering.
The summer garden belongs to the heat-tolerant and tropical crops that thrive when conventional vegetables fail: okra, southern (field) peas, sweet potatoes, boniato, calabaza, malanga, Malabar spinach, yard-long beans, seminole pumpkin, and tropical herbs. This is an excellent time to plant tropical-fruit trees — mango, avocado, lychee, longan, banana, papaya — so they establish in the summer rains, and to mulch heavily everywhere to hold soil and suppress the explosive summer weeds. Watch for the nematodes, fungal diseases, and insect pressure the heat brings, and consider solarizing or cover-cropping empty beds through the brutal months ahead.
Zone 10b (the lower east coast & south Florida): the dry-season garden is over and the wet season begins. Plant the tropical crops — boniato, calabaza, malanga, okra, southern peas — and set out tropical-fruit trees to establish in the summer rains.
Zone 8b (north Florida & the Panhandle): harvest the spring tomatoes, squash, beans, and corn before the heat shuts them down, and lean into the heat-lovers — okra, southern peas, sweet potatoes, eggplant, and peppers — that carry the long humid summer.
Zone 9a (north-central Florida): the spring garden is finishing fast in the building heat. Pick the last tomatoes and beans, mulch heavily, and rely on okra, southern peas, sweet potatoes, and tropical greens through the summer 'off-season.'
What's at the Farmers Market
May markets bridge the spring vegetables and the first tropical fruit. Central-Florida blueberries finish their early national-first season, and the spring vegetable fields wind down with the last tomatoes, bell peppers, snap beans, squash, cucumbers, and sweet corn from the southern and east-coast regions as the heat ends the season. The Everglades muck country's sweet corn and the Hastings-region new potatoes are at their peak now.
The summer's tropical fruit begins: the first mangoes from south Florida, early lychees from Miami-Dade and the Indian River, and mamey sapote and carambola (starfruit) appear at the south Florida markets and tropical-fruit stands. Look for Florida honey (the saw-palmetto and gallberry honeys come in now), boiled peanuts, and the last of the Valencia oranges. Choose mangoes that give slightly and smell fragrant at the stem, ripening them on the counter; pick lychees with bright red, firm shells and refrigerate them; buy sweet corn the day you cook it; and keep the last tomatoes at room temperature for full flavor.
Night Sky This Month
May nights turn warm and humid in Florida, and the rising afternoon storms can leave hazy skies, but on clear nights the late-spring sky is rewarding. Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park, Florida's first certified International Dark Sky Park, and the dark expanse of Big Cypress National Preserve remain the best escapes from the coastal-city glow, where the flat horizon shows the whole sky. Plan around the building cumulus, which often clears after sunset, and watch the eastern sky for the first hint of the summer Milky Way.
Overhead, the spring constellations rule: the Big Dipper rides high in the north, its handle arcing to brilliant Arcturus in Boötes and on to bluish Spica in Virgo, while Leo sinks westward. Late at night, the bright stars of summer rise in the east — golden Antares in Scorpius and the teapot of Sagittarius bringing up the rich star clouds of the Milky Way's center, which stand high and bright at Florida's southern latitude. The Eta Aquariid meteor shower, debris of Halley's Comet, peaks in early May, favoring the pre-dawn hours from a dark southern site. The printable Florida night-sky guide lists this year's exact meteor-peak dates and dark-sky sites for your region.
Butterflies & Pollinators
May keeps Florida's butterfly fauna at full strength as the summer broods take over. The state butterfly, the zebra longwing, and the gulf fritillary are everywhere on passionflower, and the big swallowtails — giant, eastern tiger, spicebush, palamedes, and zebra — patrol the gardens and woods. Cloudless and orange-barred sulphurs, white peacocks, common buckeyes, long-tailed and silver-spotted skippers, and the coastal great southern whites fly through the warm, lengthening days.
As the wet season opens, the tropical and wetland species pick up. Monarchs and queens breed on milkweed across the peninsula, the southeast-coast hammocks are alive with atala hairstreaks on coontie, and the south Florida pinelands and hammocks hold tropical specialties like the ruddy daggerwing, Florida purplewing, mangrove buckeye, and dingy purplewing found nowhere else in the United States. The flowering trees and summer wildflowers — firebush, pentas, salvia, beach sunflower, passionflower, and Spanish needles — keep nectar abundant. Planting and protecting the native host plants now ensures the gardens stay full of butterflies through the long, hot, rainy summer to come.
Trees This Month
May is the lush green start of Florida's wet season in the trees. The southern magnolias open their huge fragrant creamy-white flowers across the hammocks and gardens of the north and central peninsula — one of the South's great floral sights — and the sweetbay magnolia scents the swamps. The sabal palm, the state tree, raises its tall creamy flower spikes above the fan fronds across the flatwoods and roadsides, and the saw palmetto blooms heavily, drawing bees for the prized palmetto honey.
South Florida's flowering trees are at their spectacular peak: the scarlet royal poinciana begins to flame over the streets, the golden tabebuia and purple jacaranda flower, and the native geiger tree blooms orange along the coast. The red mangroves of the Keys and south coast are in pale yellow flower, and the seagrape, gumbo-limbo, and strangler fig push new growth in the tropical hammocks. The bald cypress swamps are deep summer green, and the Panhandle pines and the live oaks hold their full crowns as the first thunderstorms break the long dry season.
Go deeper with the Florida guides
The complete Florida birding, native-plant, wildflower, and night-sky guides — or the whole year in one bundle.
Same month elsewhere: May in Georgia · May in Idaho · May in Illinois