1 July 2009

Over the still stream, up the hillside

With numbers down 95%, it looks like hungry generations are treading down the nightingale. This may be down to habitat loss in West Africa and elsewhere as land is converted to agricultural or urban use.

Just as Pandareus' daughter,
the nightingale of the green woods, sings out
her lovely song when early spring arrives,
perched up in thick foliage of the forest,
and pours forth her richly modulating voice
in wailing for her child, beloved Itylus,
lord Zethus' son, whom with a sword one day
she'd killed unwittingly—that's how my heart
moves back and forth in its uncertainty.
Odyssey, Book 19

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