Singing with nightingales

As the sun sets over a Sussex woodland, folk singer Sam Lee leads a small group of curious people to listen to the rare and beautiful song of the nightingale

- Tanya Jackson

The silence is palpable. We sit motionless in the dark, goosebumps on our arms, listening intently to every rustle, creak and far-off snap of twig, waiting for a tweet, a call, anything that will tell us there is a nightingale somewhere in the vicinity. Like many in this little group, it will be the first time I have ever heard one. I can hardly dare breathe for fear of scaring it off.

It's a chilly May night in Sussex, and I'm one of 15 people who have just walked half a mile through pitch-black countryside to sit on the prickly edge of a stubble field in the hope of hearing their first nightingale. But we're not just here for the birds- we're in the company of musicians who, almost unbelievably, are planning a real-life symphony with them, featuring human voices, a violin, and an instrument called a shruti box.

However, like any diva worth its salt, the nightingale is making us wait. Three metres away, a soft note from a violin slowly rises through the air, lilting and growing to a dramatic crescendo. It's my favourite kind of fiddle playing-crystal clear like the Slavic gypsy style, achingly beautiful and still with you long after it ends. To my surprise, this is followed by the full-bellied, unnuanced drone of the shruti box. But singer and author Sam Lee is an authority on both folk music and nightingales, and knows exactly what he's doing.