Country diary: A late-night nightingale serenade | Nic Wilson

Strawberry Hill, Bedfordshire: After an evening round the campfire, we head into the wonderfully, chaotically alive scrub, to hear the headline act

“Now I walk in beauty / Beauty is before me”. Earlier this evening we learned the simple melody to this Navajo prayer, and sang it as a round in the hawthorn clearing, adding our voices to the chorus of chiffchaff, blackcap and garden warbler. Afterwards we sat for a few moments, listening, newly aware of the beauty before us. Across the meadow, a cuckoo began to call.

Now night has fallen, and all is silent as we follow a narrow track through scrub and young woodland on the 150-hectare Strawberry Hill Wildlife Trust reserve. Our music around the campfire was merely a warm-up to an evening of Singing With Nightingales, and tonight’s event is part of Exeter University’s research into the effects of nature connection on chronic pain.