The common nightingale, rufous nightingale or simply nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos), is a small passerine bird which is best known for its powerful and beautiful song. An Old World flycatcher, it belongs to a group of more terrestrial species, often called chats. Its range partly overlaps with that of the more northerly thrush nightingale (Luscinia luscinia), a closely related species with which hybrids have occurred.
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👉 Nightingale in the context of Knepp Wildland
Knepp Wildland is the first major lowland rewilding project in England. It comprises 1,400 hectares (3,500 acres) of former arable and dairy farmland in the grounds of Knepp Castle, in West Sussex.
Since 2000 when the conversion from intensive agriculture started, the land now supports many rare species including turtle doves, barbastelle bats, slow-worms and barred grass snakes; it has become a major nesting site for nightingales; a breeding hotspot for purple emperor butterflies; the site of the first white stork chicks raised in the wild in England for 600 years, and is home to the first beavers living in the wild in Sussex for 400 years. On 17 November 2021, the very rare vagrant emperor dragonfly (Anax ephippiger) was discovered in one field.
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Nightingale in the context of Procne
Procne (/ˈprɒkni/; Ancient Greek: Πρόκνη, Próknē [pró.knɛː]) or Progne is a minor figure in Greek and Roman mythology. Traditionally she is an Athenian princess as the elder daughter of a king of Athens named Pandion. Procne was married to the king of Thrace, Tereus, who instead lusted after her sister Philomela. Tereus forced himself on Philomela and locked her away. When Procne discovered her sister and her gruesome fate, she took revenge against her husband by murdering their only child, a young boy named Itys. Procne's story serves as an origin myth for the nightingale, a singing bird whose melodic song was believed to be a sad lament.
Procne's mythological doublet is Aëdon, the queen of Thebes who also turned into a nightingale after killing her only son. Procne's origins seem to lie in earlier traditions about the nightingale and its sorrowful song before the definitive version of her tale was probably codified during the fifth century BC in the now lost play Tereus by the Athenian tragedian Sophocles, whose initial popularity eclipsed the prior story with Aëdon. However, Procne's myth became widely known in the post-classical era due to its inclusion in Ovid's Metamorphoses, a narrative poem that went on to influence a great number of artists and authors in the western canon.
Nightingale in the context of The Nightingale (fairy tale)
"The Nightingale" (Danish: Nattergalen) is a literary fairy tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. Set in imperial China, the story recounts the friendship between the Emperor of China and a nightingale.
Nightingale in the context of Aëdon
Aëdon (Ancient Greek: Ἀηδών, romanized: Aēdṓn, lit. 'nightingale') was in Greek mythology, the daughter of Pandareus of Ephesus. According to Homer, she was the wife of Zethus, and the mother of Itylus. Aëdon features in two different stories, one set in Thebes and one set in Western Asia Minor, both of which contain filicide and explain the origin of the nightingale, a bird in constant mourning.
Aëdon serves as a doublet of the Athenian princess Procne in some versions of her myth.