Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos) is a passerine bird in the suborder of sparrows.
The nightingale have a brown back, bellow it is in the color between light brown and dark grey and it has a brownish red tail.
The nightingales are migratory birds and usually they overwinter in Africa. The nightingale can be found in deciduous forests or in dense thickets.
The nightingale is mostly famous for its singing, with light and strong tones. The singing of the nightingale is considered to be one of the most beautiful and most complex singing of all songbirds. In the early spring the nightingales sing mostly at night and until the early morning, the song serves mainly for the demarcation of reserves and for the attraction of female partners.
In the late spring the nightingales can be heard clearly even during the day. The differences in the repertoires of verses learned and changes in characteristics of the songs allows differentiations of regional dialects. The song of the nightingale is a subject of research by ethology especially for its complexity.
In the past, the song of the nightingale was considered as a painkiller and it was said to give the patient a faster recovery. Also it was said that the nightingale could give a dying patient a calmer and more comfortable death.
The nightingale is also well known from the verses of Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet: "It was the nightingale and not the lark".
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Notes
Mario Spagnesi, Lorenzo Serra - Uccelli d'Italia - Ministero dell'ambiente e della tutela del territorio, Direzione conservazione della natura, 2003