It was the nightingale I liked best. Or maybe the auroch. The nightingale sang strong and marvellously sweet when all the other singers had given up, his voice filling the night. Each nightingale has a personal repertoire of 250 phrases made from 600 individual sound units.
I ran into the auroch at six the next morning: enormous, uncompromising and emerging from the bush with a formidable set of horns.
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Simon Barnes is a former chief sports writer of the Times; his most recent book is Ten Million Aliens: a Journey through the Entire Animal Kingdom.
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