Meet Ajay, the man who shared his Norfolk nature reserve home with hundreds of seals and thousands of birds
For almost a decade his life was centred on a spit of shingle, saltmarsh, silt and sand jutting out into the North Sea.
But Ajay Tegala was rarely lonely in the warden’s accommodation out on Blakeney Point – he was too busy watching over many hundreds of seals and seabirds.
Ajay was just 14 when he first saw Blakeney Point. “Like countless others, my family was on holiday in the county and had come to see the seals. The mist made it a mysterious and eerie experience. I felt like I had entered a secret haven, a sanctuary for seals and birds,” he said.
Five years later he was volunteer assistant warden – and went on to become full-time ranger, living in a former lifeboat station, a boat ride across the harbour to the mainland at high tide, or a four mile walk along the shingle spit.
Blakeney Point has been a protected nature reserve for more than a century, looked after by the National Trust – and a series of wardens employed to protect its seal colonies and internationally important seabirds.
“Few people have had the privilege and responsibility of living on an isolated, internationally important nature reserve,” said Ajay.
“Whenever I hear the distinctive calls of terns, I am transported back to Far Point in summer: the excitement, the drama, the responsibility, the absolute joy.”
The National Trust’s first coastal nature reserve has been a bird sanctuary for 121 years.
From early April until mid-August the wardens keep careful watch on its four types of terns, making sure seal-seeking visitors do not trample on the nests and crush the eggs. Other threats include foxes, rats and herring gulls – and Ajay had an innovative approach to keeping herring gull populations down by perfecting recipes featuring their eggs.
His job ranged from routine tasks such as the daily monitoring of the wildlife and patrols to deter egg theft, to crises which got national and international attention including the 2013 tidal surge and the terrible helicopter crash the following year which killed four US servicemen.
There were also mysteries including what was happening to the baby seals, washing up dead with strange corkscrew lacerations.
During his time there he was filmed for television shows including Countryfile, Springwatch, Autumnwatch, Winterwatch, Homes by the Sea and Coast - and went on to become a wildlife television presenter.
He also kept diaries and has written an account of life as ranger, or warden, of the National Trust nature reserve. “This is the story of what life as a ranger on one of Britain’s prime nature sites is really like, from the excitement of monitoring the rapidly growing seal population to the challenges and struggles of protecting ground-nesting birds from a plethora of threats,” he said. “This is my tribute to the beauty of Blakeney, to the wildlife and the people to whom it is home.”
The Unique Life of a Ranger: Seasons of Change on Blakeney Point includes photographs and drawings by Ajay.
“When you fall in love with a place as special as the north Norfolk coast, it remains in your heart and mind forever,” said Ajay. “I will always feel immensely proud to be part of the history of Blakeney Point.”
The Unique Life of a Ranger: Seasons of Change on Blakeney Point by Ajay Tegala is published by The History Press on August 4.
