BIRDS AT NIGHT
'Until you wrote about bird notes in the night recently I had hugged my experience as unique, for I had great comfort of a phrase of song which came at about 4 a.m. night after night last year,' says a Belfast reader. 'A gap of perhaps three hours in sleep was tedious as I could only lie and think, then this noticeable noise would break the tension and I would ease into sleep. This year the circumstances are different, yet I am conscious of hearing the blackbird once or twice. There are no nesting trees close but a great chestnut tree may be the roost. The sound is resigned rather than cheer- ful and not at all like the passioned notes of brooding time.' Thinking again of the few bird notes I have heard after dark I can only list the owl, the curlew and small waders—the latter moving by dim moonlight. The nightin- gale is not reported in my locality as far as I know, although a man who used to live in the village once told me that it sang one summer in the trees near his garden. I have since wondered if the bird might not have been some other species singing on an exceptionally clear moonlight night.
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