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The Nightingale of the North
Sun 24th Aug, 2025
“Do you have Nightingales in these forests Richard? Merlin has just picked one up” It was late May 2025 and I was leading one of my Nightjar Safaris in the Great Yorkshire Forest. We were listening to a Song Thrush belt out its amazing song. One of my guests was using the wonderful app developed by Cornell University called Merlin.
Song Thrush - North Yorkshire © Richard Baines
A few weeks later with another group we were in the same area and I predicted this might happen. Like magic another guest using Merlin also picked up Common Nightingale on her app. I felt like a magician. Things got even better a few moments later when another guest showed me his phone screen, Merlin had found a Marsh Warbler!
I was very pleased Merlin had detected a singing Nightingale but it wasn’t a real Nightingale or a Marsh Warbler. In the spring of 2024, I found a Song Thrush in the same location making the bubbling and high pitch call of a Nightingale. On this occasion Merlin predicted we were listening to a range of rare birds: Icterine Warbler, Common Nightingale and Thrush Nightingale with Song Thrush thrown in at the bottom of the list like a crafty hint! Maybe this was the same bird we were listening to a year later in May 2025.
Song Thrush juvenile - North Yorkshire © Richard Baines
I have been enchanted by Song Thrush song for many years. Before Merlin came on the scene, I was introducing my guests to a magical Song Thrush which mimicked Common Crossbill song. I now have a long list of birds from a very small area where I have found up to four Song Thrushes using a wide variety of mimicry. European Nightjar, Brambling, Common Buzzard, Blue Tit the list goes on and every year I hear new sounds.
Song Thrush - North Yorkshire © Richard Baines
So, the question is where are these Song Thrushes learning these sounds? The sounds of some birds such as Crossbill and Buzzard can be learnt in the forest where Song Thrushes nest. They can do this without moving away for their breeding territories. In order to learn more exotic sounds, they have to travel.
According to the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) Migration Atlas a small proportion of British Song Thrushes migrate south and this proportion is higher in the north of England. Ringing recoveries have traced Song Thrushes to Portugal, the south of France and central Europe. Despite this the literature considers most of our British Song Thrushes to be sedentary. There is also the matter of migratory Song Thrushes arriving in autumn from Fennoscandia and staying to nest the following year. This possibility is also discussed in the Migration Atlas.
Song Thrush - North Yorkshire © Richard Baines
If the Song Thrushes or the fathers of these birds I listen to in the Great Yorkshire Forest really are mimicking rare birds they have heard, then they must have spent time in continental Europe. Despite years of migration studies by the BTO, many mysteries remain which Merlin is only now starting to uncover. So, if you have the Merlin app, find a local Song Thrush in spring and you may be as amazed as I was at the range of tricks our Nightingales of the North can perform.
YCN Director and Wildlife Guide