(no subject)

[flemmings]

As ever, a crossword clue took me to Keats Ode to a Nightingale, which I'd somehow managed never to read even as I see it quoted all over the Victorian literary landscape. Then I wondered just what was so melodiously wonderful about nightingales, given how unmusical birds are in general. Googled and listened to a few videos of same. Nightingales sound like a clockwork something winding down. Keats must have been eating some high quality opium to get from that to 'full-throated ease.'

Never did care for birds much, actually. Even before I learned they were shrunk dinosaurs I felt there was something unheimlich about them.

Comments

[anna_wing]

I much prefer the Oriental Magpie-Robin, which has a lovely, liquid, multi-phrase whistle.

[flemmings]

I was noticing that even western magpies have a much more melodious trill. But of course no one goes romantic-dewy-eyed about them. Bloody corvidae.

Googling tells me that oriental magpie-robins are not related to magpies at all, but they do indeed have a nice whistle.