This year, the sound was coming from snakes, and no amount of explanation would persuade the locals otherwise. The fact that the year before, and for every year in living memory, this sound had been assigned to corvids seemed to make little difference. The sound they were making? Yes, you guessed it: a short, plaintive toot. Several snakes had been heard at night, high up in the trees on the edge of the village. Then, one summer, there was unease amongst the villagers. My friend, Marcel Gil Velasco, whose family hails from the village, had explained to his relatives that the sound was in fact coming from an owl and not a crow but sometimes folk-law is more persistent than rationale and the belief that the sound was coming from a crow continued.

Passed down through the generations, it was local belief that the toot noises they were hearing at night came from roosting crows. For as long as anyone can remember, the local name for scops owl has been “little crow”. Speak to the locals about the scops owls and you’ll hear two conflicting stories. After a little while, though, the nightingales would fall silent and the next few hours of the night were left to the owls. They’d continue until after sunset, by which time up to three Eurasian Scops Owls Otus scops had started up as well. Every evening, despite the wind, up to seven Common Nightingales would begin singing in the poplar belt at the edge of the village where I was staying. I’d been in central Spain for several days trying to record Dartford Warblers Sylvia undata – between strong winds, rain, and unseasonably cold temperatures, I hadn’t managed to get very far with that task.

Nightingale sound