24/03/2018
The incredible song of Common
Nightingale on a spring evening is a real treat. Once
you know where to find them and get the timing just right, you'll be
rewarded with a performance few other songbirds can match. This superstar of
the British summer has an illustrious repertoire that includes at least 250
different phrases: a rich, fluid and melodic warble interspersed with croaking,
grunting and high pitched singular notes.
This elaborate act has secured
nightingale's place in our culture, with books, music, poetry and theatre all
paying tribute to what might otherwise be seen as just a 'little brown job'.
Curiously many stories about nightingale refer to the superb songster as
female. Indeed it was once thought by naturalists and writers that it was the
hen, rather than the male, serenading her mate from deep within the hedgerows.
This lyrical phrasing is now
becoming harder to hear as the species' population is crashing: 90 per cent of
the UK's nightingales have vanished in the past 50 years, and their range has
contracted, confining them to the south and east.
Read on
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