On the Night

There will be wooden benches and stools to sit on around the fire. Feel free to bring a small cushion if you would like some creature comforts. If you would like to bring your own portable stool to sit on please do so but please no large camping chairs as they take up a lot of room around the fire and will need to be placed in the outside ring (the coldest place). We also need to carry all our personal belongings to the birds so a large chair will prove exceptionally cumbersome.

We listened to your feedback and have lovingly created stools for the fireside (with small seat pads provided) designed to be both comfortable and also fit as many of you as close to the fire as possible. These stools do not have backs to them but are high enough for good posture and easy access. We set the circle up each night in such a way as to make sure everyone has good sight, warmth and acoustic reach to the music and storytelling.

We provide some little light and portable tripod seats to take to the birds for those who prefer not to stand or can’t sit on the floor. As every night's bird location and weather conditions are different it's hard to predict what is best. Some nights we are out on open grass and sometimes we are packing tightly into a narrow footpath. So what space and substrate we are on can vary widely.

Having a sturdy picnic-style blanket that is sonically quiet (not like a rustling bin bag) is great for lying down on if space allows or having a cushion that doesn't mind being on wet grass or a muddy spot for giving some support should you prefer being upright. A fold-up camping-style chair is generally far too cumbersome to walk with and, unless necessary, not very appropriate. If you want to come prepared our recommended devices for portability, quietness and lightness that are economical are these fold-up step stools.

If you are camping you should bring a torch for your personal use. However, around the fire, we only work with natural flame light to allow us to make the best use of our night vision. We will have lanterns to help guide you if you need to leave the fireside during the dinner and story period. The walk to the birds is done in natural darkness and torches are not used except at difficult moments (such as stiles and tricky sections of the walk). Here our team will support you with night-vision-protecting red-beam light.

Experiencing true night-time darkness is a vital and special part of the experience (many people share it to be their favourite part of the event). The walk is taken slowly and guided and includes a full health and safety briefing. A fellow guest’s torch beam glancing in your eyes can ruin the up to 40 minutes it takes some people to adjust to the dark, rendering them and yourself virtually blind for a short while thereafter. Please abstain from torch use unless completely necessary.

If you are uncomfortable with darkness and are unsteady on your feet, we will be there to help support you and offer you an arm. If some supportive light is absolutely needed, we encourage the use of torches with a red beam and recommend purchasing torches with that setting in advance.

Our venues are all outdoors but around the fireside for dinner and during the sit-down period, we have shelter provided in case it rains. The worst consequence of rain is the speed at which mud develops and how long after it has rained that mud persists. So despite it seeming to be dry on your night the legacy of a wet period might still be experienced. Hence we strongly recommend sturdy footwear.

If it is a wet night we highly encourage you to bring waterproofs and make sure you balance out your dry comfort against the request for quiet attire. We would rather our group sounded a bit swishy as we walked and moved than for us to all be soaking wet in the upholding of the ‘embodied silent conduct’ we do rather like to go on about. We do advise against umbrellas due to the nature of, come darkness, umbrella spokes becoming hazardous to other participants' eyes.

This is not a problem. Let us know as soon as you can via the contact info on your letter/email of communication and we will hold some food back for you. When you arrive please find the site staff to let them know you have arrived.

Please do your best to not to arrive too late, as every part of the evening is a part of the process of dropping into a state of calm, magic and wonder. If you are late the most important thing is to not stress about it and arrive flustered – we will welcome you whenever you make it and do our best to fill you in on what has happened. It is the inevitability of life’s demands that we can't always be on time. It is also the Nightingales’ fault who choose hard-to-find, remote locations!

Mobile reception is not great at our locations. At our Sussex site, on arrival at the car park when you come down into the farmyard, the signal is non-existent so please do whatever communications you need from the hill as you enter into the land before driving down into the farmyard.

Please do not record any part of the Nightingale experience. Some of these walks may be recorded professionally and made available after the event (this will be advised in email communication).

You are welcome to take photos and short videos around the fire, but please turn off your flash, and camera sounds, and shoot with subtle discretion. We are very happy for you to share images on social media and invite you to tag @singingwithnightingales and @samleesong using the hashtag #SingingWithNightingales so we can see your lovely posts!

Yes indeed. The Sussex site is permissive woodland (privately owned with permission from the landowners to allow visitors to wander freely in the daylight hours without dogs). You are welcome to come and explore the woods earlier.

With the intensity of events and the number of people visiting, our team needs people-free space where we host the events in the woods. This is also where we live and rest between shows. The team would be grateful for uninterrupted time between shows to clear up from the previous night and prepare for the next show. If you are an early arrival before registration or late departing, please keep a respectful distance from the SWN fire site area on your wanderings.

The best time to come is always when you know you have the day after set aside as quiet and free to appreciate what has just happened to you the night before. There is no better part of the season. The birds sing days before we arrive and end often a good week after we leave. Birds dependant, there will always be singing happening but as we detail elsewhere on this page not every night can be guaranteed a song-rich night.

For those wanting to book according to temperature, the theory that ‘the later you leave it the warmer it is’ is from vast experience not true. April can be balmy and May can be cold. Spring these days obeys no patterns or regularity. April guests will however get to experience the beauty of the early spring leafing and the woodland floor carpets in wood anemones but the May guests will get bluebells and the full leaf. Each moment holds its own distinct beauty and no guest ever complains of the floral abundance and says they wish they had come later or earlier. You will always be missing some spectacle but also benefiting from another!