Monday 11 May 2015

It's not Berkeley Square, but it'll do



One advantage of not sleeping well  - actually some may say the only advantage - is that getting up in the middle of the night enables you to hear the nightingales singing.

They don't only sing at night, but it's easier to hear them in the quiet of the olive grove at 3am. It's a beautiful song. According to the RSPB the "high quality song is a fast succession of high, low and rich notes that few other species can match". I think that about sums it up.

Although the famous song suggests that A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, you'd have to doubt that anyone would have heard it above the roar of traffic in the West End of London, even 50 or 60 years ago.

Be that as it may, it's a good song and a fitting one to end this post.




  • Picture by Nachtigall_(Luscinia_megarhynchos).jpg: J. Dietrich derivative work: Bogbumper (Nachtigall_(Luscinia_megarhynchos).jpg) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

5 comments:

  1. How lovely to hear nightingales - do you ever see them too - or is it just too dark at that time in the morning over there? Special Teaching at Pempi’s Palace

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  2. A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square is one of favourite songs. Love it.

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  3. I wish we had nightingales here. I don't think we do, at least not here in Texas. I love birds. I frequently hear hoot owls in the wee hours of the mornings. I love that sound.
    Nice song here Mark. Very mellow...
    Michele at Angels Bark

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  4. Another advantage to not sleeping at night is I got to see a opossum eating chunks of bread that I had thrown out for the birds. You never see them in the daylight either. I don't think I have nightingales here in my part of the world.

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  5. Hi Mark - must be lovely hearing nightingales ... they're trying to save a tract of land or reserve here - where they want to build ...

    I love hearing the blackbirds in the pre-dawn ... they used to be woodland birds in the fields, so having moved into the easier habitat of suburbia .. they've adapted by being awake more .. it's beautiful - so I don't mind!

    Cheers Hilary

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