Where to go to hear a nightingale sing

The first cuckoos are audible, skylarks are singing their hearts out, the dawn chorus is in full, joyous effect and more bitterns are booming than in decades. But the real highlight of the birdsong calendar is only now beginning in earnest: nightingale season.

Nightingales have been winging their way from sub-Saharan Africa across Spain and France and into the wilder fringes of the southern part of England, where they are beginning their attempts to seduce each other by means of song. And it’s this seductive sound that has given this tiny bird such a huge place in our culture. 

There are two guaranteed reference points for any discussion about nightingales. So I may as well get Keats and Berkeley Square out of the way immediately. But the cultural resonance of the world’s greatest songbird is much, much bigger than these recurring staples. Nightingales have been popping up everywhere for nearly 3,000 years, and occur in everything from the poetry of Sappho in 600BC to modern punk music, giving their name to a band that toured with the Clash.