Field Notes: THE NIGHTINGALE
Hello and welcome,
If you've found your way here, it means something in this month's Field Note caught your attention, which is lovely to hear.
I'll confess that the nightingale presented a particular challenge — not for lack of material but for an embarrassment of it. Few birds have gathered quite so much human attention around them, and the poets alone could fill several pages. What follows is an attempt to bring together the threads that felt most alive to me — the poems, the music, the books and the history that this extraordinary bird has inspired. I've had to leave a great deal out, and I make no apology for that. Some of what's here you may already know. Some of it I hope will be new.
Take your time. Follow whatever catches your eye. And if something here leads you somewhere unexpected, so much the better. Enjoy!
Enjoy,
Emerson
If you've found your way here, it means something in this month's Field Note caught your attention, which is lovely to hear.
I'll confess that the nightingale presented a particular challenge — not for lack of material but for an embarrassment of it. Few birds have gathered quite so much human attention around them, and the poets alone could fill several pages. What follows is an attempt to bring together the threads that felt most alive to me — the poems, the music, the books and the history that this extraordinary bird has inspired. I've had to leave a great deal out, and I make no apology for that. Some of what's here you may already know. Some of it I hope will be new.
Take your time. Follow whatever catches your eye. And if something here leads you somewhere unexpected, so much the better. Enjoy!
Enjoy,
Emerson
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Poetry
The Owl and the Nightingale — Anon, c.1200 One of the earliest poems in Middle English — a formal debate between an owl and a nightingale arguing over whose voice and way of life is more valuable. Nobody knows who wrote it. The nightingale stands for pleasure, poetry and worldly delight; the owl for wisdom, solemnity and what comes after. It has been argued about by scholars ever since. The current Poet Laureate Simon Armitage has produced a celebrated modern translation, beautifully illustrated by Clive Hicks-Jenkins. Ode to a Nightingale — John Keats Written in a single morning in May 1819, sitting in the garden at Wentworth Place in Hampstead. Keats had recently nursed his brother Tom through tuberculosis and was beginning to show symptoms himself. The nightingale's song becomes an escape from mortality — and then, famously, it doesn't. One of the most celebrated poems in the English language and entirely in the public domain. Worth reading in full and slowly. The Nightingale's Nest — John Clare Where Keats reaches for the transcendent, Clare stays close to the ground. He was a farm labourer from Northamptonshire who knew his birds from direct observation rather than literary tradition, and it shows. His nightingale is a real creature in a real thicket, not a symbol. The contrast with Keats is instructive — two poets hearing the same bird and finding entirely different things. The Nightingales — Ivor Gurney Gurney wrote the poem in the shadow of the First World War, carrying the full weight of what had already been written about nightingales and adding something darker besides. There is a particular kind of anguish in hearing that song after the Somme. His poem sits in the tradition and strains against it at the same time. The Song of the Nightingale is Like the Scent of Syringa — Mina Loy An early poem by the American modernist, drawing on the same lyric tradition as Keats — beauty, sensuality, emotional intensity — but with a sharper, more unsettled sensibility. Loy went on to become one of the most radical experimental voices of the twentieth century. This poem shows where she started. Nightingale — Bill Coyle Written in 2006, fully aware of everything that has come before it. Coyle doesn't try to hear the nightingale fresh — he explores what it means to encounter a bird that has already been transformed into literature. A good poem to read last, once you've spent some time with the others. |
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Words
The story on the back of this month’s Field Note is drawn from a long tradition. The image of the nightingale pressing itself against a thorn in order to sing more beautifully runs through Persian poetry, European folklore and medieval literature, and appears most famously in the West in Oscar Wilde’s The Nightingale and the Rose (1888), in which a nightingale sacrifices itself against a rosebush thorn to create a red rose for a student in love. Wilde was almost certainly drawing on earlier Persian poetic traditions, in which the nightingale and the rose are inseparable symbols — found throughout the poetry of Hafez and Rumi — where the bird’s longing for the rose becomes a figure for the soul’s longing for the divine. This month’s retelling is an amalgamation drawn from those traditions rather than any single source. The thorn is always there. The song is always what it produces. The Nightingale — Sam Lee Lee’s book follows the nightingale through song, landscape and tradition, weaving together natural history, folk music and personal experience. Optimistic without being naive. A good companion to the album Old Wow. Nightingales in Berlin — David RothenbergThe book that accompanies Rothenberg’s musical work — part natural history, part philosophy, part memoir of an unusual collaboration. For anyone who found the urban birdsong adaptation story interesting, this is where to go next. Nightingales in November — Mike Dilger An almanac of twelve British birds told through the calendar year — where they go, what they're doing and when, drawing on decades of ringing records and satellite tracking. The kind of book you can open at any page and lose half an hour without noticing. Illustrated throughout by renowned bird artist Darren Woodhead. |
Beatrice Harrison
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Playing Alongside the Bird
There is a particular human impulse, it seems, not just to listen to the nightingale but to answer it. Beatrice Harrison — BBC Outside Broadcast, 1924 Harrison had been playing her cello in her garden in Oxted, Surrey, when a nightingale began singing back. She wrote to the BBC, who sent a van, a microphone and considerable scepticism. On the evening of 19 May the nightingale sang and ten million people listened, and the BBC had accidentally invented the outside broadcast. The broadcasts continued for years. In May 1942, during the Second World War, a formation of RAF bombers passed overhead on their way to Mannheim while the microphones were live in the garden. The transmission was cut for security reasons, but the recording continued and resulting in a poignant double-sided recording of the moment surviving. David Rothenberg — Nightingales in Berlin Rothenberg has spent years playing clarinet alongside wild nightingales, documenting what happens when a human instrument enters that conversation. Running alongside his work, the Museum für Naturkunde’s citizen science project Forschungsfall Nachtigall tracks how Berlin’s urban nightingales adapt and reshape their songs to cut through city noise. That a wild bird modifies its voice in response to its environment feels like something worth sitting with. Sam Lee — Singing with Nightingales Lee leads musicians and listeners into the twilight woods of southern England to improvise alongside the birds, treating the encounter not as performance or experiment but as conversation. Old Wow emerged from those nocturnal gatherings beneath the birds themselves, but also sits within his wider work exploring traditional songs such as The Nightingale and the long cultural history of birdsong in folk music. |
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Conservation
Once found across much of England, nightingale numbers have fallen by around 90 per cent over the last fifty years. Habitat loss, changes in woodland management and increasing deer populations browsing away the dense understorey the birds rely on are considered among the principal causes. The romantic image of the nightingale belongs to moonlight and deep woodland. The bird itself prefers scrub, bramble and dense edge habitat so untidy that modern landscapes rarely tolerate it for long. The Knepp Estate has become one of the most closely watched examples of what rewilding can achieve. Since Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell moved away from conventional farming in 2001 and allowed the land to regenerate more naturally, nightingale numbers have recovered significantly. Wilding tells the fuller story and is well worth your time if you want to understand what rewilding looks like in practice rather than theory. |
A Note on How to Find Everything
I've provided links throughout — just tap on the names. For the music, Bandcamp is the best place to find independent artists. They receive a significantly larger share of revenue through Bandcamp than through the major streaming platforms — and on the first Friday of every month Bandcamp waive their own fees entirely, meaning every penny goes directly to the artist. This month that falls on Friday 2nd May — worth timing your purchases accordingly. For the books, your local independent bookshop is always the first port of call. If you need to order online, Bookshop.org supports independent bookshops across the UK and is a genuinely meaningful alternative to the obvious options. Worth noting they currently deliver within the UK only, so overseas subscribers may need to seek out a good independent bookseller closer to home.
Until Next Month
Thank you for following the nightingale this far — I hope something here has made you stop and listen. In the meantime subscribers to Field Notes gain access to an exclusive discount code over on my Etsy shop. Each month the discount will change so just click here to see what is available this month. Discounts will automatically be added to your basket.
I've provided links throughout — just tap on the names. For the music, Bandcamp is the best place to find independent artists. They receive a significantly larger share of revenue through Bandcamp than through the major streaming platforms — and on the first Friday of every month Bandcamp waive their own fees entirely, meaning every penny goes directly to the artist. This month that falls on Friday 2nd May — worth timing your purchases accordingly. For the books, your local independent bookshop is always the first port of call. If you need to order online, Bookshop.org supports independent bookshops across the UK and is a genuinely meaningful alternative to the obvious options. Worth noting they currently deliver within the UK only, so overseas subscribers may need to seek out a good independent bookseller closer to home.
Until Next Month
Thank you for following the nightingale this far — I hope something here has made you stop and listen. In the meantime subscribers to Field Notes gain access to an exclusive discount code over on my Etsy shop. Each month the discount will change so just click here to see what is available this month. Discounts will automatically be added to your basket.