Download This Sample
This sample is exclusively for KidsKonnect members!
To download this worksheet, click the button below to signup for free (it only takes a minute) and you'll be brought right back to this page to start the download!
Sign Me Up
Table of Contents
The common nightingale, rufous nightingale, or simply nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos) is a small passerine bird famous for its powerful and captivating song.
See the fact file below for more information on the Nightingale or alternatively, you can download our 28-page Nightingale worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.
Key Facts & Information
Etymology
- The word βnightingaleβ is a combination of the word βnightβ and the Old English galan, meaning βto sing.β
- Its genus name Luscinia is a Latin word for βnightingaleβ and megarhynchos stems from Ancient Greek megas, meaning βgreatβ and rhunkhos βbill.β
Subspecies
- Western nightingale (L. m. megarhynchos) inhabits Western Europe, North Africa, and Asia Minor, wintering in tropical Africa.
- Caucasian nightingale (L. m. africana) flies in the Caucasus and eastern Turkey to southwestern Iran and Iraq, wintering in East Africa.
- Eastern nightingale (L. m. golzii) lives in the Aral Sea to Mongolia, wintering in coastal East Africa.
Description
- The common nightingale is relatively larger than the European robin, at 15 to 16.5 cm in length. It sports a plain brown plumage with a reddish tail. It is buff to white below. Male and female nightingales display similar external features.
- The eastern subspecies, L. m. golzii, and the Caucasian subspecies, L. m. Africana, have paler upper parts and a more defined face pattern, including a pale supercilium, or a plumage feature found on their heads.
- The song it produces has been described as among the most beautiful sounds in nature, inspiring songs, fairy tales, opera, books, and a number of works in poetry.
Distribution and Habitat
- It is a migratory insectivorous bird breeding in forests and shrubs in Europe and the Palearctic, wintering in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is not endemic in the Americas.
- The nightingaleβs distribution is more southerly than its cousin, the thrush nightingale, Luscinia luscinia.
- It builds its nest on or near the ground in dense vegetation. Studies in Germany have discovered that favored breeding sites of the nightingale depended on a number of geographical factors: (1) less than 400 m above mean sea level, (2) mean air temperature during the growing season above 14 Β°C, (3) more than 20 days/ year on which temperatures rise above 25 Β°C, (4) yearly precipitation less than 750 mm, (5) aridity index less than 0.35, and (6) absence of closed canopy.
- In the United Kingdom, the nightingale is at the northern limit of its range which has settled in recent years, classifying it on the red list for conservation.
- The European breeding population, on the other hand, is estimated between 3.2 and 7 million pairs, categorizing it as a species of least concern.
Behaviour and Ecology
- Nightingales got their name because they usually sing at night as well as during the day. The name has been used for more than thousands of years, being well-known even in its Old English form nightingale, which means βnight songstress.β
- Writers during the early centuries assumed the female nightingale sang when it was in fact the male. The song is loud, with an outstanding range of whistles, trills, and gurgles. The song it sings is easily recognizable at night because few other birds are singing, being the main reason why its name includes βnightβ in the majority of the languages.
- Only single males sing regularly at night, producing a nocturnal song that most likely attracts a mate. Singing at dawn, an hour before sunrise, is assumed to be a significant element in defending their territory.
- These birds sing even more audibly in urban or near-urban settlements, in order to get rid of the background noise.
- The most notable feature of the nightingaleβs song is a loud whistling crescendo, a characteristic missing from the song of the thrush nightingale.
- They also produce a frog-like alarm call.
- Nightingales function as hosts for the acanthocephalan intestinal parasite Apororhynchus silesiacus.
Cultural Connotations
- The nightingale is an important emblem for poets of different ages and has obtained several symbolic connotations.
- Homer stimulates the bird in the Odyssey, implying the myth of Philomela and Procne, one of whom, depending on the legendβs account, is magically turned into a nightingale. This myth is the subject of Sophoclesβ tragedy, Tereus. Roman poet Ovid, too, in his Metamorphoses, mentions the most famous version of this myth, duplicated and revised by later poets, including ChrΓ©tien de Troyes, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, and George Gascoigne. Thomas Stearns Eliotβs βThe Waste Landβ also includes the common nightingaleβs song, together with the myth of Philomela and Procne. Given the violent themes present in the myth, the nightingaleβs song was used for mourning or grieving.
- Poets preferred the nightingale as a symbol because of its artistic and apparently impromptu song. Aristophanesβ Birds and Callimachus both induce the birdβs song as a form of poetry. Virgil, a poet in Ancient Rome, also compares the mourning of Orpheus to the βlament of the nightingale.β In Sonnet 102, Shakespeare equates his love poetry to the song of the bird.
- During the Romantic period, the nightingaleβs symbolism shifted; poets considered the bird not only as a poet in its own right, but as βmaster of a superior art that could inspire the human poet.β
- The nightingale is the national bird of Ukraine and the official national bird of Iran.
Nightingale Worksheets
This is a fantastic bundle that includes everything you need to know about the Nightingale across 28 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Nightingale worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about the Nightingale which is a small passerine bird famous for its powerful and captivating song. Slightly larger than a robin, a nightingale is skulking and extremely local in its geographic range in the United Kingdom, while in much of southern Europe they are common and more easily spotted.
Complete List Of Included Worksheets
- Nightingale Facts
- Creature Feature
- A Bird Story
- Choose Well
- Word Search
- Bird FAQs
- Puzzle Time
- Two Songbirds
- Bird Watching
- Who is Florence?
- Cultural Depictions
Link/cite this page
If you reference any of the content on this page on your own website, please use the code below to cite this page as the original source.
Link will appear as Nightingale Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, August 12, 2021
Use With Any Curriculum
These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.