T he dawn chorus at RSPB Northward Hill in Kent is a riot of sound: the melodic robin, the two-tone cuckoo, the whitethroat’s scratchy warble. Even the garbling geese and mooing cows from the neighbouring Thames marshes add to the symphony.

Dawn chorus

Dawn chorus

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RSPB Northward Hill in Kent. What was arable land as recently as the 1990s has been converted, through planting and natural regeneration, into a mix of woodland and scrub. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

But in late April one energetic singer hogs the limelight. For a few weeks after arriving from West Africa, the nightingale spends the night – and early morning – in complex song.…