My bottom desk drawer is a graveyard, the final resting place for the obsolete. A broken calculator, foreign coins, buttons and a Maxell C90 cassette given to me a few years ago. I had no means of playing it until I recently discovered my clunky cassette deck hiding in the garage.

An accompanying note says the tape contains 'the song of a Nightingale in the churchyard of St John sub Castro, Lewes, spring 1985'. It was recorded by a lady called Barbara from an upstairs window in neighbouring Lancaster Street. After some dusting, re-wiring, buzzing and hissing the sweet sound that swirled from my speakers transported me back over three decades to a time when Reagan negotiated with Thatcher, Paul Hardcastle’s na-na-na-na-Nineteen topped the charts and a Nightingale sang in St John sub Castro.

To be frank, Nightingales aren’t much to look at. Small brown birds; a Robin without the redbreast. But when they open their beak there’s a Susan Boyle-like transformation. These drab birds become the world’s most celebrated vocalists. For centuries, poets have praised their performance. Homer, Shakespeare, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Clare, Keats, Dylan and Cohen. Shelley claimed, 'A poet is a Nightingale who sits in darkness, and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds'. Trust young Percy Bysshe to believe the bird was wallowing in its own self-pity. The Nightingale’s song is actually both an aggressive war-cry and a sweet, structured sonnet. A hymn to the silence in the hope of enticing a passing female.

The Nightingale’s optimistic warbles have inspired everyone from the late Vera Lynn to Roxy Music. A BBC recording of a bird singing in Oxted in 1942 inadvertently captured the roar of Lancasters, Wellingtons, Stirlings and Halifaxes passing overhead laden with bombs destined for Germany. The contrast between innocence and beauty, terror and destruction make it the most powerful sound I have ever heard.

Nightingales will sing by day but are most famous for never letting up when the sun sets, their beautiful phrasing carrying loud and clear over the muffled grunts and hoots of other nocturnal animals. Once the Nightingale has hooked a partner his nocturnal performances will stop, so there’s a narrow window to hear them. Our Nightingales spend the winter south of the Sahara in a wide belt between Senegal and Kenya, usually returning in late April.

Due to habitat destruction the UK population of this amazing bird –so entwined in our cultural heritage – is in a steep decline. The sound of a Nightingale singing in the centre of Lewes may have been relegated to the bottom drawer of history but we are blessed to still have this
bird performing in our Sussex woodlands.
We must never let their song of hope be
silenced forever.

By Michael Blencowe: Learning & Engagement Officer, Sussex Wildlife Trust
Sussex Wildlife Trust is an independent registered charity caring for wildlife and habitats throughout Sussex. Join Michael Blencowe on our regular wildlife walks and also enjoy free events, discounts on wildlife courses, Wildlife magazine and our guide book: Discovering Wildlife in Sussex.
It’s easy to join online at: www.sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/join

Nightingale Roger Wilmshurst Sussex Wildlife Trust
Nightingale Derek Middleton Sussex Wildlife Trust