Luscinia megarhynchos
The Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos), also known as the Common Nightingale, is celebrated above all for its song. Renowned for elaborate, powerful phrases delivered both by day and, more famously, after dark, its voice has inspired poets, composers and storytellers for centuries and given the species a cultural presence far beyond its modest appearance.
Description of the Nightingale
In plumage, the Nightingale is unassuming: slightly larger than a Robin, with warm brown upperparts, a distinctive rufous tail and pale buff underparts. This understated colouring stands in deliberate contrast to its voice, and much of the bird’s appeal lies in that very disparity between sound and sight.
The Range of the Nightingale
The species breeds across much of Europe, into Asia Minor and North Africa, favouring dense scrub and thick undergrowth close to the ground, where it can nest largely unseen. Nightingales are long-distance migrants, wintering in sub-Saharan Africa and returning to their breeding grounds each spring.
Within the UK, the Nightingale is now largely confined to the South East of England. Numbers here have fallen markedly in recent decades, a decline widely attributed to habitat loss and changes in woodland management, even as populations across mainland Europe remain comparatively stable.
This watercolour of the Nightingale was painted by Charles Collins in 1737 and forms part of the Taylor White Collection, a body of 18th Century natural history watercolours held in the McGill University Library. Rediscovered and reproduced here, it offers a faithful record of the species as observed by one of the period’s most accomplished natural history artists, painted at a time when careful, direct observation of birds in the field was still a comparatively new discipline.
c.1680 - 1744
Charles Collins (c.1680-1744) was a painter of birds, mammals and still life, born in Dublin and trained in Ireland before establishing himself in London. He built his early reputation on still-life subjects, including a series of fruit studies for Robert Furber's Twelve Months of Fruit (1732), before turning increasingly to natural history illustration. From 1736, Collins worked alongside Peter Paillou to produce watercolours of British birds and mammals for the naturalist and collector Taylor White, contributing over 200 signed works to White's collection. His animal studies are noted for their lifelike composition, typically set against a grassy mound or tree stump rather than a plain background, and for the accuracy with which plumage and colouring were recorded from live or preserved specimens. Collins died in London in 1744, described at the time as Bird Painter to the Royal Society.
Credit: Taylor White Collection, Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University Library.