Poignant, personal piece about life "on the brink" in Orkney

I spent the summer staying up all night. When everyone else was asleep, I was out in the gloaming with the livestock and the wildfowl, searching for a rare, endangered bird. I returned each morning to the tiny rented half-a-house above the harbour town where I went to school. Here, they call me ‘the corncrake wife’.