Nightingale by Tim Melling Via Flickr: I managed to find this recording of a Nightingale singing at the same spot where I took this photograph, but one year earlier: xeno-canto.org/991144 It is a beautiful recording and could even have been of this same bird. The scientific genus is Luscinia, which is Latin for Nightingale, and comes from luctus (lamentation) and cano (sing). Most birds go to sleep at night but the Nightingales continue day and night, but only for a few weeks in spring. There is an old myth that the Nightingale keeps awake by pressing its breast against a thorn as it sings. This one was in good voice but kept itself obscured by vegetation. I had forgotten how skulking and difficult they were as the majority kept hidden in thorn thickets and were heard but never seen.
