Walking along a leafy path a few days ago, spring birdsong providing a musical accompaniment, I was suddenly aware of a different mellifluous tune. Immediately and delightfully recognisable I identified it as a nightingale. More usually heard singing at night – their song is so much more noticeable then when other birds are asleep – this noon day bird was carolling his heart out. Enough to lift the heart and cheer the soul.
Nightingale song is beloved of poets, musicians and almost anyone with a sensitive spirit. In 1924 the musician Beatrice Harrison was practising her cello in the garden when she became aware of nightingales singing around her. She persuaded the BBC to record this wonderful partnership and the resulting recording went as viral as was possible in those days. Public reaction was enthusiastic and Beatrice received over 50,000 fan letters – some simply addressed to ‘The Nightingale Lady’.
The poet John Keats is well known for his ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, slightly melancholy but with those beautiful phrases that speak of ‘tender is the night’, ‘magic casements’ and ‘thou light winged Dryad of the trees’. I thought of those phrases later that same day when I leant from my window in the small hours of the night and heard again the nightingale singing his bubbling joyful paean – this time accompanied by a distant tawny owl.
Spring bliss indeed.
