In the dark before dawn it was a pure delight to hear - not just the 'usual' one, but a pair of nightingales - calling across left to right, from tree to tree.
I don't recall ever hearing any such until the past decade; then I heard and saw one nightingale half a mile from my house, in one direction - and then another a similar distance in the other direction. And in the past few years there has been a nightingale singing from within about fifty yards of my backdoor.
It's a lovely song - not better, but more abstractly beautiful, than the virtuoso, fruity-toned, melodious blackbirds.
To cap it - Venus blazing in the south-east almost next-door to a very bright Jupiter - an egg-shaped gibbous moon in the south-west.
The prevalent emotion - other than sehnsucht - was gratitude. Quite explicit - because I now regard such moments as meaning-full, no 'accident'.
