Common Nightingale

How to identify

Field marks

1. Plain brown upperparts, with only the tail reddish
2. Pale yellowish-brown to white underparts

Male, female and young

Sexes similar, but female does not sing.

Voice

Song is loud, with an extremely wide pitch range, and is also given at night.

Where and when it's recorded

Common Nightingale has been recorded at 1,052 of the 8,171 birding hotspots we track, in 82 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

1. Jerusalem Bird ObservatoryIsrael1,394 records
2. Desembocadura del Guadalhorce – ÁreaSpain1,269 records
3. South Downs NP – Pulborough Brooks RSPB ReserveUnited Kingdom979 records

Countries and regions with the most records

SpainPortugalGermanyUnited KingdomIsraelFranceCzechiaGreece

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The common nightingale, rufous nightingale or simply nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos), is a small passerine bird which is known for its powerful and beautiful song, often described as one of the most beautiful sounds in nature. 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.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

Questions