Swansong for nightingale as numbers plummet

BRITAIN’S most musical bird is facing extinction after dramatic declines in recent years, experts warned yesterday.

Nightingales, whose spectacular song has inspired poets such as Keats, have suffered a 90 per cent decline in the past 50 years.

A study by British Trust for Ornithology says their population has shrunk to between 5,095 and 5,983 singing males.

The red-listed birds sing to woo females which means the best way to assess the population is to listen out for them.

But their range has contracted to just the south and east of England, reports the Journal of Applied Ecology.

The BTO says the nightingale’s best site is Lodge Hill in Kent with about 85 singing males in the last survey in 2012.

But it is under threat from developers despite being a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

It has been earmarked as a possible area for housing by Medway council’s draft local plan which is out for consultation until Monday.

Government agency Homes England is drawing up plans for more than 2,000 homes on the old MoD site.

Medway Council says nothing has been decided and any application would have to go through the full planning process.

Nightingales are under threat because of loss of habitat in the UK and on their wintering grounds in Senegal and The Gambia.

For breeding they like low dense scrub which forms an enclosed dome over a bare area of earth where they feed on beetles and ants.

BTO research leader Dr Chris Hewson said: “They could become extinct in Britain. With the sort of declines we have seen in the past 50 years, who knows what could be left in another 50 years?”