Bird watchers are being encouraged to report bird sightings this weekend to the Manx BirdLife charity.

World Migratory Bird Day is this Saturday, May 8, and is designed to raise the profile of migrating birds and the need to conserve them. This year’s theme is ’Sing, Fly, Soar - Like a Bird’.

MBL said that more than 40% of bird species - around 4,000 - migrate, and this coming weekend is the peak migration weekend.

Triggered by a need to breed, the birds that spend the summer with us on-island have already started arriving.

Many come from wintering grounds in Africa, completing journeys fraught with dangers along the way. Swallows, house martins and cuckoos are all arriving. Sandwich terns are now fishing around our shores, having travelled to the island from the Mediterranean Sea and the coasts of western and southern Africa.

Swifts will be arriving and zooming around overhead in their screaming parties, while Arctic terns will be found on our shingle beaches having travelled here from the Antarctic.

Submit bird sightings to http://manxbirdlife.im/sightings/submit/