Nightingale

My first Nightingale images.

It is quite frustrating standing around listening to a Nightingale singing, which can only be two metres from your position and you cannot see it, no matter how hard you try. This is quite normal for me during April and May.

In the Woodland/Grassland Reserve that I visit regularly, this year there are quite a number of Nightingale. 

I know most of the locations where I would expect to hear them, so it was a surprise to find one in a different area and even more so that I could actually see it in the undergrowth. The light was poor, but I just took as many shots as I could and thankfully a few where suitable enough to post. 

NB: You may be interested to know that the Reserve is one that John Clare (the Poet) walked regularly and is just a couple of miles from where he was born and lived. Clare was the first person to record details of many of the birds, plants and wildlife on what is now a Nature Reserve managed by Natural England.

Clare wrote "The Shepherds Calander".

In the verses pertaining to April there is a line:

"And to thy ripen'd blooming bowers the Nightingale belongs;

And singing to thy parting hours, keeps night awake with songs."

You may have heard of the song "A Nightingale sang in Berkeley Square."

I was amused when I walked by Berkeley Square in London once. 

I tended to think that a Nightingale was likely to die from Nitrogen Oxide poisoning with all the car fumes rather than sing. {:))