Tom Jones or Justin Bieber?

Hen nightingales believe there's "many a good tune played on an old fiddle"

I struggle to remember the last time I heard a Nightingale fill the cooling spring night air with song. In my book Words From The Hedge I explain the reasons behind the spiraling decline of this dowdy turdidae chorister. Without wanting to spoil the surprise, the culprit is primarily the loss of scrub habitat. The causes of the ongoing decline in their nesting haunts is more complex -using my finest salesman’s pitch- you’ll have to buy a copy of the book to find out what these are! Now, that’s the marketing done with, onto the song.

As beautiful as it sounds to we humans, the melody of the Nightingale is in truth the avian equivalent of dads bragging at the school pick up about their paternal prowess. Only the cock Nightingale “singest in summer in full throated ease”. The older a male gets, the more tootles, trills and whistles he learns, adding more vocal tricks to his repertoire year upon year. It is believed, the more complex a male’s song becomes, the more likely a hen will be persuaded that this troubadour is just the sort of experienced and diligent guy she is looking for.

Males and females divide parental duties equally. It is, therefore, a sensible precaution on the hen’s part to choose a partner that is a time-served Tom Jones type over a callow and cack handed Justin Bieber. Once paired up, cock Nightingales largely rest their vocal chords, being too busy brooding and feeding to spare the time for ditties. The males who are left on the shelf meanwhile will continue singing their unseasoned adolescent strains of unrequited love until July. After that they’ll return to Africa, where they will learn some new notes, write some new songs and try these out on the ladies next Spring.