The housing development that could silence our nightingales | Patrick Barkham

The 5,000 homes planned for Lodge Hill, Kent may be much needed, but what price do we put on the rare songbirds breeding there?

Per-per-per-cheat. Churrup-churrup-chur-put. I'm struggling to put into words the extraordinary song I heard last week. Only poets such as John Keats and John Clare come close to capturing the quick-fire bubbling joy of the nightingale, whose liquid melodies make the lovely song of a nearby wren seem flat and one-dimensional.

This aural wonder was even more miraculous because I heard it on a chilly sodden evening at a brownfield site in Kent.

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