Thrush Nightingale

Luscinia luscinia

The thrush nightingale, also known as the sprosser, is a small passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family. It is a migratory species breeding in forests in Europe and the Palearctic and overwintering in Africa. An insectivore, it nests near the ground in dense undergrowth. Its distribution is more northerly than the very closely related common nightingale, which it closely resembles in appearance. Hybrids between the two have occurred in areas where their ranges overlap. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 91 times across 4 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

See the Thrush Nightingale on the live map

Movement and weather

Each season it is first heard regularly where daytime highs are around 13°C (typically 11 to 15°C, from 11 areas). That holds across 15° of latitude, which suggests its timing follows temperature more than the calendar.

Over the weeks it was present in the past year, its centre in Europe ranged from 53°N in April to 62°N in June, about 1,000 km apart.

Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

Download every area as CSV

Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.