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The Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos), also known as Rufous and Common Nightingale, is a small passerine
Passerine

A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders:...
 bird
Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
 that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush
Thrush (bird)

The Thrushes, family Turdidae, are a group of passerine birds that occur mainly but not exclusively in the Old World....
 family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher
Old World flycatcher

The Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae is a large family of small passerine birds restricted to the Old World. These are mainly small arboreal insectivores, many of which, as the name implies, take their prey on the wing....
, Muscicapidae. It belongs to a group of more terrestrial species, often called chat
Chat (bird)

Chats are a group of small Old World insectivorous birds formerly classed as members of the thrush family Turdidae, but now considered Old World flycatchers....
s.

It is a migratory
Bird migration

Bird migration refers to the regular seasonal journeys undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather....
 insectivorous species breeding in forest and scrub in Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
 and south-west Asia
Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and, with over 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population....
.






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The Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos), also known as Rufous and Common Nightingale, is a small passerine
Passerine

A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders:...
 bird
Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
 that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush
Thrush (bird)

The Thrushes, family Turdidae, are a group of passerine birds that occur mainly but not exclusively in the Old World....
 family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher
Old World flycatcher

The Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae is a large family of small passerine birds restricted to the Old World. These are mainly small arboreal insectivores, many of which, as the name implies, take their prey on the wing....
, Muscicapidae. It belongs to a group of more terrestrial species, often called chat
Chat (bird)

Chats are a group of small Old World insectivorous birds formerly classed as members of the thrush family Turdidae, but now considered Old World flycatchers....
s.

It is a migratory
Bird migration

Bird migration refers to the regular seasonal journeys undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather....
 insectivorous species breeding in forest and scrub in Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
 and south-west Asia
Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and, with over 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population....
. The distribution is more southerly than the very closely related Thrush Nightingale
Thrush Nightingale

The Thrush Nightingale, Luscinia luscinia , is a small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the Thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher, Muscicapidae....
 Luscinia luscinia. It nests on the ground within or next to dense bushes. It winters in southern Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
. At least in the Rhineland
Rhineland

The Rhineland is the general name for the land on both sides of the river Rhine in the west of Germany. After the collapse of the First French Empire in the early 19th century, the German-speaking regions at the middle and lower course of the Rhine were annexed to the kingdom of Prussia....
 (Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
), the breeding habitat
Habitat (ecology)

A habitat is an ecological or Natural_environment area that is inhabited by a particular animal or plant species. It is the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the physical environment that surrounds a species population....
 of nightingales agrees with a number of geographical
Geography

Geography is the study of the Earth and its lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth"....
 parameters.
  • less than 200 m (600 ft) above mean sea level
    Above mean sea level

    The term above mean sea level refers to the elevation or altitude of any object, relative to the average sea level datum . AMSL is used extensively in radio by engineers to determine the coverage area a station will be able to reach....
  • mean air temperature during the growing season
    Growing season

    In agriculture, the growing season is the period of each year when agriculture can be grown. It is usually determined by climate and crop selection....
     above 14°C
  • more than 20 days/year on which temperatures exceed 25°C
  • annual precipitation
    Precipitation (meteorology)

    File:MeanMonthlyP.gifIn meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of Atmosphere water vapor that is deposited on the earth's surface....
     less than 750mm
  • aridity index
    Aridity index

    An aridity index is a numerical indicator of the degree of dryness of the climate at a given location. A number of aridity indices have been proposed ; these indicators serve to identify, locate or delimit regions that suffer from a deficit of available water, a condition that can severely affect the effective use of the land for such activi...
     lower than 0.35
  • no closed canopy
    Canopy (forest)

    Canopy refers to the aboveground portion of a plant community or crop, formed by Crown_.Canopy is also the term for the upper layer or zone of a forest, formed by Crown_ and including other biological organisms ....
    .


The Nightingale is slightly larger than the European Robin
European Robin

The European Robin , or, in Anglophone Europe, simply Robin, is a small insectivorous passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the Thrush family , but is now considered to be an Old World flycatcher ....
, at 15-16.5 cm length. It is plain brown above except for the reddish tail. It is buff to white below. Sexes are similar.

Nightingales are named so because they frequently sing at night as well as during the day. The name has been used for well over 1,000 years, being highly recognizable even in its Anglo-Saxon form - 'nihtingale'. It means 'night songstress'. Early writers assumed the female sang; but in fact, we have learned it is the male. The male nightingale is known for his singing, to the extent that human singers are sometimes admiringly referred to as nightingales; the song is loud, with an impressive range of whistles, trills and gurgles. Its song is particularly noticeable at night because few other birds are singing. This is why its name (in several languages) includes "night". Only unpaired males sing regularly at night, and nocturnal song is likely to serve attracting a mate. Singing at dawn, during the hour before sunrise, is assumed to be important in defending the bird's territory. Nightingales sing even more loudly in urban or near-urban environments, in order to overcome the background noise. The most characteristic feature of the song is a loud whistling crescendo, absent from the song of Thrush Nightingale. It has a frog-like alarm call.

The eastern subspecies
Subspecies

In biology, subspecies is the taxonomic rank immediately subordinate to a species. A subspecies is a taxonomic group which is less distinct than the Common descent or species from which it originates....
 L. m. hafizi and L. m. africana have paler upperparts and a stronger face-pattern, including a pale supercilium
Supercilium

The term supercilium is a name for a plumage feature present on the heads of many bird species. It is a stripe which starts above the bird's loral area, continuing above the eye, and finishing somewhere towards the rear of the bird's head....
.

Culture

  • "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square
    A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square (song)

    "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" is the title of a well-known romantic United Kingdom popular song with lyrics by Eric Maschwitz and music by Manning Sherwin and Jack Strachey....
    " is the title of a well-known romantic British popular song with lyrics by Eric Maschwitz and music by Manning Sherwin and Jack Strachey.
  • John Keats
    John Keats

    John Keats was an England poetry who became one of the principal poets of the English Romanticism movement during the early nineteenth century....
    's "Ode to a Nightingale
    Ode to a Nightingale

    File:W._J._Neatby_-_Keats_-_Nightingale.jpgOde to a Nightingale is a poem by John Keats. It was written in May 1819 in the garden of the Spaniards Inn, Hampstead, London....
    " has attracted high praise, the upper limit of which may be "one of our shorter English lyrics that still seems to me... the nearest to perfection, the one I would surrender last of all" and "one of the final masterpieces of human work in all time and for all ages".
  • The love of the nightingale for the rose is also widely used, often metaphorically, in Persian literature
    Persian literature

    Persian literature spans two and a half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. Its sources has been within historical greater Iran including present-day Iran as well as reigions of Central Asia where the Persian language has been the national language through history....
    .
  • A Provençal
    Provençal

    Proven?al may refer to*Proven?al, meaning "of Provence", a region of France*The Proven?al of the Occitan language, spoken in the south of France...
     folk song, "", inspired Tchaikovsky
    Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

    Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – ) was a Russian composer of the Romantic music era. He wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake and Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his Piano Concerto No....
     when composing his Humoresque opus 10-2.
  • The beauty of the nightingale's song is a theme in Hans Christian Andersen's
    Hans Christian Andersen

    Hans Christian Andersen , also known as simply H. C. Andersen ); was a Denmark author and poet, most famous for his fairy tales. Among his best-known stories are "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "The Snow Queen", "The Little Mermaid", "Thumbelina", "The Little Match Girl", "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Red Shoes "....
      story The Nightingale
    The Nightingale

    "The Nightingale" is a fairy tale by Denmark poet and author Hans Christian Andersen about an emperor who prefers the tinkling of a bejeweled music box to the song of a nightingale....
     from 1843.
  • The Nightingale figures in a fairy tale
    Fairy tale

    A fairy tale is a fictional story that may feature folklore characters such as Fairy, goblins, Elf, trolls, giant , and talking animals, and usually enchanted, often involving a far-fetched sequence of events....
     by Oscar Wilde
    Oscar Wilde

    Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish people playwright, Irish poetry and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest Celebrity of his day....
     entitled "" from the a collection of children's stories called (1888).


External links

  • Internet Bird Collection: . Retrieved 2008-NOV-11.
  • The Freesound Project: (requires free account to download). Retrieved 2006-DEC-09.
  • The Freesound Project: (requires free account to download). Retrieved 2006-DEC-09.
  • Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (British)- Nightingale . Retrieved 2007-JUN-11.
  • Rose and nightingale in Persian art
  • Nightingale song and behavioural ecology