Portfolio > 2026

Venus and the Nightingale

Hearing my first nightingale singing

A dusk chorus of blackcaps and warblers, the distant call of cuckoos and occasional coos of turtle doves gave way to the mellifluous song of these extraordinary returning African visitors. Watching Venus reflect on the mirrored pond, rising slowly in the darkening eastern sky, I was mesmerised by the presence of so many nightingales. These shy, secretive birds, mostly hidden from view, offered their nocturnal soliloquies, mapping out the acoustic arena of this once industrial lunar-like landscape transforming the former gravel pits into an immersive otherworldly scene.