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Common Nightingale

Common Nightingale

Luscinia megarhynchos

Identify the Common Nightingale by sound or photo and log your sightings with Birdpass.

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The Common Nightingale is a shy, warm-brown songbird celebrated for one of the richest, most powerful songs in nature. It breeds in dense undergrowth across much of Europe, North Africa and western Asia and winters in sub-Saharan Africa. Its range lies mostly south and west of the closely related Thrush Nightingale, with which it can hybridise.

Did you know?

  • Only unpaired males sing regularly at night, to attract a mate.
  • Researchers have recorded about 1,160 different syllables in nightingale song.

Voice

Song
Call
Alarm call

About the species

Identification

Very like Thrush Nightingale: the back is warm brown, but the tail and rump are bright rufous. The breast lacks the grey mottling of the Thrush Nightingale. The eye is large and dark with a pale eye-ring. The two species can be hard to separate in the field; the key marks are the more rufous tail and plain breast. The song is melodious and varied.

Family

Turdidae

Size

Small (sparrow)

Colours

brown, grey, white, orange

About the habitat

Dense shrubs and thickets, overgrown hedgerows, woodland edges, clearings and riverside scrub with tangled low vegetation and some open ground beneath.

Diet

Mainly insects and other invertebrates such as beetles, ants, caterpillars, spiders and worms; berries and small fruits in late summer.

Behaviour

Secretive and ground-dwelling, it forages by hopping through leaf litter under cover, often cocking its tail. Males sing loud, intricate songs full of whistles, trills and crescendos from concealed perches by day and, when unpaired, through the night. It nests on or near the ground in thick cover. The alarm call is a frog-like croak.

Sources

Photo: Warrieboy, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luscinia megarhynchos - Common nightingale - Nachtegaal (cropped).jpg

Sound: Sonothèque ADVL, XC918124, CC0 1.0 https://xeno-canto.org/918124

Sound: Sonothèque ADVL, XC707295, CC0 1.0 https://xeno-canto.org/707295

Sound: Joost van Bruggen, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luscinia_megarhynchos_-_Common_Nightingale_XC431489.mp3

Text: Wikipedia (English) + FinBIF species descriptions, CC BY-SA 4.0; FinBIF: CC BY 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_nightingale

See also