Since I’ve got hooked on Springwatch again, I decided to flick through my copy of Birds Britannica by Mark Cocker and Richard Mabey. I was re-reading the entry on the nightingale this morning which mentioned the BBC recordings of the cellist Beatrice Harrison playing alongside a nightingale in her garden in Oxted, made in 1927. As you might expect, I had no problem tracking these down on the Interweb. As well as the clip below, I also came across the website for a US radio programme from 2005, Music and Nature, with more information, the recording itself and subsequent recordings, including one made in 1942 of the nightingale accompanied by the slightly less peaceful sounds of RAF bombers on their way to a raid. Fascinating, beautiful, and in the latter case, a little chilling.