It has inspired playwrights, poets and songwriters, was a popular cage-bird in Victorian times and is now a scarce but much-loved springtime attraction. Andy Wilson takes a look at one of our most evocative birds, the nightingale.

The nightingale is a clandestine bird of scrubby habitats but in contrast to other British songbirds and probably due to its secretive nature, little is known about its habits.

Although widespread and common in continental Europe, the nightingale is scarce in Britain, restricted to the southern counties of England where there are between 4,000 and 5,000 pairs. The birds return from their African wintering grounds from the middle of April onwards. Following a period of vociferous singing to stakeout territories, they become elusive from late May onwards and are rarely seen or heard before they disappear back to Africa in mid to late summer.

The species' scarcity in England reflects its very particular habitat requirements. Nightingales only take up residence in the thickest vegetation, such as that provided by young thorn thickets or coppiced woodland. Whether this choosiness is due to food requirements, siting of the nest or evasion of predators is not known, but as soon as the scrub grows beyond the thicket stage, the birds leave.

Rarely seen out in the open, nightingales feed largely on the ground under dense shrouds of vegetation seeking out spiders, beetles, earthworms and other small invertebrates. The single clutch of four or five eggs are usually laid in mid May with young fledging around three and a half weeks later. An enigmatic characteristic of the nightingale is, as its name suggests, its penchant for singing in the dead of the night. Actually they can be heard singing at almost any time of day but are most audible at night when other birds and background noises are reduced. A potential pitfall for the unwary are robins, which are often tempted out of slumber to sing by streetlights at night, sometimes to be reported as nightingales by those who haven't heard the real thing.

It is known that nightingales have been in decline in Britain since the 1950s and they have now all but disappeared from many parts of the Midlands. The reasons for the decline are varied and complex - changes in the management of scrub and woodland, increasing deer populations and climatic changes all paying a part.

Fortunately Suffolk is still a stronghold for this species - in the 1980 nightingale survey, 367 singing males were recorded, a county total beaten only by Kent and Sussex. Favoured sites include Trust reserves such as Bradfield Woods and Lackford Lakes but particularly high numbers are found around Woodbridge and along the coastal belt.