And a nightingale sang

On the wettest and windiest night of this month of May, a friend and I walked deep into coppiced Sussex woodland to hopefully hear nightingales sing. Thankfully we weren’t alone. We had joined a group of around 20 people, all led by the ornithologist, story-teller and folk singer, Sam Lee. To begin the evening’s adventure, we all huddled under a wide awning to eat a delicious vegan supper before trailing out into the fields whilst it was still dusk, to listen to the chorus of birds. We identified blackbirds, of course, and robins and chiffchaff and thrushes and owls and even a cuckoo. We then back -tracked to the welcome shelter to listen to dreamy Oud music played by London based Syrian, Rihab Azar and gentle folks songs performed by Sam. Around midnight, with no light except moonlight, we splashed and sploshed in single file across fields and through woods to a clearing that only Sam could locate, to strain our ears for male nightingales singing their own midnight chorus. We continued to be totally quiet and even held our breath (well, I did) to listen for the songbirds. Through the pouring rain, I was super- lucky to hear a nightingale sing for all of one minute - and yes, it was glorious. It was worth the drenching weather but no wonder Mr Nightingale wasn’t keen on singing for very long that night.

I recommend you snatch up any future opportunities to hear nightingales because they are forecast to disappear; in 35 years’ time, they will have died out in England and we’ll need to travel to Scotland or Wales or even better, Berlin which has a rising population of these songbirds. Berkeley Square has been long abandoned in favour of the Tiergarten.