Nightingale

The common nightingale is a small old world’s thrushes. They belong to the family Turdidae and belong to the order Passeriformes.  The Eurasian nightingale is a brown colour bird, They can grow up to to 16 centimeters long and they have a rufous tail like cocks. The Eurasian nightingale is also known as Erithacus or Luscinia and they are strong and sing songs in which crescendo effects are prominent. They are uttered day or night by staying near the shrubbery. The thrush nightingale is also known as sprosser, whose scientific name is E. Luscinia is closely related to a common nightingale. They are more northerly species and they have slightly darker plumage. But, the thrush nightingale lacks in songs the crescendo.  

The term nightingale is also applied to the other birds, who can sing rich songs. The group includes the Chinese nightingale, Indian nightingale bird, neotropical nightingale thrush group, and the mockingbirds in the West indies. The common nightingale, simply nightingale or rufous nightingale, is small birds, which are well known for their powerful and beautiful songs. These species are formerly classed under the Turdidae, but now they are placed under the class old world flycatcher Muscicapidae. These species are the known terrestrial species often called chats. 

The scientific name of the common nightingale or rufous is Luscinia megarhynchos. The word Luscinia is derived from the Latin word, which denotes nightingale. Further, megarhynchos derived from the combination of two Ancient Greek words: mega, meaning great, and rhunkhos, meaning bill.  The thrush nightingale is also known as the sprosser, and its scientific name is Luscinia luscinia. The genus of Luscinia includes the white-bellied redstart and the bluethroat birds. 

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Habitats and Distribution of Nightingale 

The nightingale birds are the migratory insectivorous species. These breeds are found in forests and scrub of Palearctic and European countries. Also, they can encounter near Sub-saharan Africa during winters. The nightingales are not naturally found in America. The species which are distributed more near the southern region are closely related to the thrush nightingale (Luscinia luscinia).  The nightingale nest is usually located near the ground of dense vegetation. As per the research in Germany, the favoured breeding habitat of nightingales are determined by a number of geographical factors. 

1. The geographical area should be at least less than 400m above sea level. 

2. They require an air temperature of about 14°C during the growing season. 

3. They require a temperature of about 25°C for more than 20days/year

4. The location with annual precipitation of fewer than 750 millimetres facilitates the growth 

5. They require an aridity index of less than 0.35 for favourable conditions

In the United Kingdom, the night angel birds have been located at the northern limit ranges, but now they are contracted in the recent days. Now, they are placed on the red list for conservation. Many NGOs are taking efforts to safeguard the population so they favoured the population with coppice and scrub habitat. Then the numbers are brought to 53% between 1995 to 2008.  According to the survey conducted by the Ornithology groups from British Trust from 2012 to 2013 recorded for about 3,300 territories, absorbed from a few countries in the southeast of England. On the other hand, the European breeding population is estimated at 7 million pairs from 3.2 million after these species are coming under the green conservation status. 

Behaviour of Nightingale 

The common nightingales are named for singing frequently during day and night. The term nightingale is more than 1000 years old. The old name of the species is nihtegale, which means “night songstress”. Many writers are predicting that the female birds will sing songs to find their male. The song of I nightingale bird is loud, with an impressive range of trills, whistles, and gurgles. The songs of the bird can be particularly noticed at night because all other birds are singing. That’s why the names of birds are included ‘night’ in many languages. Only unpaired male birds are singing regularly during nights to find their suitable mates. The male birds will sing in the dawn, especially during the hour before sunrise. This is most important in defending the bird’s territory.  The nightingales will sing more loudly in an urban environment and near urban environments, because of their loud background noise. The characteristic feature of the nightingale bird’s song is a loud whistling crescendo. But the thrush nightingale did not sing and created a frog-like alarm call. The blue nightingale birds are the host of the acanthocephalan intestinal parasite (Apororhynchus silesiacus)

Nightingale Location

The common nightingales have three recognized subspecies. Each of the subspecies is widely spread over different geographical distributions. The western nightingale species are resident in North Africa, Western Europe, and can be found near Asia Minor for most of the years and they can also encounter near sub-Saharan Africa during winters. The Caucasian nightingale is usually found near the swath of territory between Iran and the Caucasus. During the winter season, they will travel to East Africa. The third species are the eastern nightingales, which are endemic near central Asia and also in East Africa during the Winter. The other main species in the list of nightingales are the thrush nightingale, which is spread over a large stretch in the territory of Central Asia, Denmark, and Ukraine. During the winter season, they will migrate to southern Africa. But both the species prefer shrublands and woodlands, from which they can hide them from predators. 

Nightingale’s Physical Appearance 

Most of the blue nightingale birds are relatively small birds and their wingspan is about 7 inches long with a wingspan measuring about 8 to 10 inches. The male birds look slightly larger than the average female birds. The actual weight of some birds is less than females due to their high metabolic rates and energy expenditure during singling. These birds will have plain brown feathers and look lighter on the underside of feathers. The night angel bird has a broad tail and black eyes with white rings. The beak of the nightingale looks yellow-coloured, small and flat in structure. 

The nightingale song at night has no particular social organization to speak. But these birds will maintain a specific territory for the entire non-winter season and then they guard aggressively from outside intruders. When the two male nightingales are gathered together the fight will break out. But, the most remarkable features of the night angel birds are the vast repertoire of songs with which to communicate.  The nightingale song at night is of two types. They are territorial defence and sexual selection. Here, the non-whistle calls are used also like other types of communication between them. The competition among the breeding have rights is fierce. The healthiest and aggressive males will sing the best songs and they will end the songs after securing their mate. Approximately half of all birds will not breed successfully. But, the nightingales sing a song and impose a high cost on the bird, both in terms of energy expenditure and making it easy for recognition by their predator. 

Nightingale Breeding

The common nightingale’s breeding season will fall between the May and June months of every year. The male birds will attract their females for mating by producing the whistle-like sound, which is popularly noticeable at night when few other birds make noise. The female nightingales are highly discriminatory and they will seek and choose their mating partner with the best songs of male. After finding the perfect mate partner, they will reduce the whistles sound and stop singing at night till the female birds lay their eggs. 

Both the parent birds will secure and guard the eggs against their predators. But, only the female birds will construct a suitable nest and incubate the eggs. Once the birds have emerged from the eggs, till two weeks from hatching the newly hatched birds will look undeveloped and they are highly dependent on their parents for their survival. The newly hatched chicks will gain their flight feathers after a brief 11 to 13 days. Further, the speed of the chick's development is completely related to the timing of the migration season during autumn. 

The nightingale birds have a relatively short lifespan, which is about one to five years. Because these birds are spending a full year to reproduce and develop a chick and develop them. Within that, their chicks will start reproducing. The birds have only a few opportunities to breed during their lifetime. The oldest nightingale was recorded with a lifespan of about eight years. But most of the birds will fall victim to their predators before attaining their old age. 

Interesting Facts About Nightingale 

1. In 1924, the Oxten garden made a most celebrated recording of the nightingale singing 

2. About two hundred years ago, there was trade by trapping nightingales as cage birds, but only a few birds sustained to live.

3. Nightingale’s population in Britain is around 4,000 pairs

4. Most of the nightingale birds are found in southeast England and East Anglia, but they are never found in Ireland or Scotland. 

5. The Birds are widely spread over the northwestern edge of their range. Spain, Italy, and France have the biggest populations, which range from tens of thousands of pairs.

6. The thrush nightingale present in northeast Europe have many similarities with the common nightingale

7. Birds will start migrating towards the south from July to late August. 

8. The birds in Europe start to migrate to sub-Saharan Africa during winter, which is as far east as Uganda.

9. The migrating birds will cross the Mediterranean and the Sahara in one flight. 

10.  Winter migrating birds will remain faithful in the same area for a week or a month. 

11. The study over the nightingale birds shows that each bird can sing many songs in a variety of ranges and power. They are showing about 200 different phrases

12. Most of the male birds will sing from a dense cover. They usually choose a place which is hard to find. Only occasionally they will sing from open space. 

13. Seeing nightingales is always difficult. As they have the ability to hide in the thick cover, where they are difficult to spot. 

14. Both the sexes of nightingales will look identical to the human eye. 

15. In England, even cocks will start singing like a nightingale as soon as they return from the migration in mid to late April; they will continue until early June. On the other hand, continental birds have a long singing period.