The Farne Islands off the coast of Northumberland is just one of the incredible and unique places Duncan Halpin has been able to call home through his job that allows him to travel to some of the most remote places.
The 33-year-old is one of the National Trust's live-in rangers and has been carrying out conservation work since 2013. His job has taken him to the uninhabited Isle of Noss in Shetland and the Norfolk dunes, where for seven months of the year he lives in a blue, tin-clad box.
Between March and October, he and two assistants hunker down in a former lifeboat house that's a two-hour walk at high tide to the nearest shop.
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"Remote living is a little bit of my thing really," Duncan told WalesOnline. "I saw the job advertised and thought that would suit me fine. But it's definitely not for everyone, you've got to be willing to forgo some comforts."
During his time on the Farne Islands, Duncan would only leave the island once a week to shower and wash his clothes. "I'm comparatively comfortable" he said, comparing his time off the Northumberland coast to his current site at Blakeney.
He added: "There's running water, a washing machine, showers, so it's not too bad. You could put me in a tent and I'd be happy, I don't need very many comforts."
Duncan's current home at Blakeney has been a colourful beacon on the coast since 1898 when it was used to house lifeboats for rescue operations at sea. But after just a few years of service, the build-up of shingle made it impossible to launch the vessels and in 1922, the building came into the possession of the Trust, which has employed someone to live there ever since.
"This tin box has been standing here for 100-plus years - rustic is the best way to describe it," said Duncan, who is only the 12th ranger to move in. "It slopes from one end to the other which would have made it easier to get the boat out [but means] you can be chopping at the kitchen cabinets at [normal] level on one side of the room and at the other you’re chopping at navel level."
As well as the uneven floors, his part-time home is both leaky and draughty, though he is stoic about being semi-exposed to the elements, explaining that it’s near impossible to make a building constructed from timber and tin completely weatherproof in such an extreme environment.
It's a lifestyle that requires a certain disposition and skillset, including the ability to plan ahead and enjoy one's own company. Forget something at the supermarket and it’s either do without or trek to the “local” Spar in Blakeney - a two-hour walk at high tide that takes an hour on foot if the water’s out. Similarly, if you want to pop to the pub in the evening it’s not the place for you, says Duncan, since that too is at least an hour away. Instead, he passes the time reading, chatting to his colleagues and watching Netflix, since perhaps mercifully, the mobile signal is good.
This is Duncan’s second season on the point, a four mile (6.4km) spit of land stretching into the North Sea. In the summer, its expanse of saltmarsh is a haven for sandwich terns; in winter, it is taken over by England’s largest grey seal colony, a population so territorial during mating season that it’s simply not safe for humans to get too close.
“Come the middle of December the seals are all around the lifeboat house, so as well as it being bitterly cold you would be surrounded by angry seals,” says Duncan, who estimates that about 5,000 pups are born between October and January.
“If you stand on top of the dunes when it’s still you can hear that wailing sound: the bull seals are fighting for control of groups of females and the birds are circling to pick up bits of placenta. It feels so wild then and like it’s not somewhere humans should be.”
In the summer, life is very active for Duncan, whose main focus is to ensure the tern population on the nature reserve does well. His role is to mitigate the threats to the four species that nest there using methods he calls “disturbance management”, which can involve setting up cordons to stop walkers straying into the habitats, to distracting birds of prey.
“We manage the predator presence here so for kestrels that involves [something called] diversionary feeding,” he explains. “We have a table set up in the dunes and we feed them with mice… which is not a job for everyone.”
Duncan is usually up at 4am in the summer months and works until 10pm. He spends a lot of time counting chicks and nests and says sometimes you can do all you can and still not get good results. But his work last year was rewarded with a bumper flock of sandwich terns which saw at least 1,000 chicks being born as opposed to the usual 300-400.
“We went out in a boat in the late afternoon in mid-August and there were just hundreds of young birds flying around and fishing - it was a phenomenal sight. It’s probably my best memory here so far.”
These are the moments that, for Duncan, make the isolation worthwhile. He doesn’t dwell on the alternative anyway, since realistically his job is not commutable.
“You absorb it in a way that you don’t get when you just visit somewhere and that’s the best thing about living here,” he says. “You’re surrounded by some of the best wildlife the country has to offer in the summer months - it’s pretty special.”
When the weather starts to cool, his team begins to pack away for the autumn. In the evenings, it’s a case of remaining in the room with the woodburner for as long as possible before “running to bed with your hot water bottle and blanket” then dashing out in the morning to dress quickly in layers. When winter forces Duncan to return to the mainland, he lives in a house that is historically rented to the ranger and spends time doing paperwork and checking on the seals.
“I can’t say I miss it,” he says when asked whether he thinks about living in a “normal” house. “The rewards for me outweigh the disadvantages. Living and working in some of the most amazing places in the country with fantastic wildlife - and doing that in a way that’s quite simple - I find that’s the rewarding bit.
“You get to see the seasons from the birds arriving, to laying eggs and raising chicks, then off they go again for the winter. You see it in an intimate way, that’s the reason I do the job.”
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