Nightingale


At night and specially at dawn we hear the nightingale singing. Its quite magical sitting outside in a warm spring or summer night listening. We have different woodlands here at the finca and that seems to be their favourite place.
You can also hear them during the day, together with all the other birds singing.
In September the  Nightingale emigrates to tropical Africa and will gain around 50% of it´s weight in order to be able to fly the long distance. It returns to us in april, the male about ten days before the female. The bird can be quite difficult to see as it is small (15 cm), have plain brown feathers and a red-sided tail.
The female builds her nest in the bushes in the shadow of trees. In May there will be 5-6 eggs of olive green colour. The young birds will only stay 11-12 days in the nest.
The young Nightingale has to learn to sing, it only needs to hear an adult singing to be able to imitate. When there is a Nightingale which is a good singer it automatically improves the quality of the other Nightingale´s song in the same area. On the other hand if a good singer dies the new generation loses quality. There are areas where the birds only know one monotonous song.
The song will be strong and loud in spring and  from the second part of June it will sing less vigorously and softer. The male is then trying to teach the young birds, who will repeat the different strophes.