Lookout! It's The Birds in Britain.

a reply to: woogleuk

hahaha I see what you did there

Reggie Fullerlove of Love Lane, Whitby claims

councillor Earnest Backslash said

Those devils don't live around our place but they sound every bit as fierce as our mockingbirds and blue jays. We always know when they've bred successfully because the minute we get within 20' of the tree where they are nesting they begin the onslaught.
I watched a big ole tomcat get nicked on the head half a dozen times one day by a mocking bird. He was far too fat and lazy to climb the tree to the nest but he finally just plopped down under the tree and turned onto his back. When that bird swooped the next time, it was the last time. Cats are faster than birds.

a reply to: woogleuk

Haha, good reply mate

I won't be swayed with my love for gulls though, beautiful birds, even if they are basically flying rats. They do a great job on weekends cleaning up drunk folks dropped burgers, kebabs, and even vomit.

On a serious note I would support a controlled egg destruction in the Spring if only because of the sheer numbers of them, but the coast would be a strange place without our gulls. I do miss their sound in the Winter.

People moan about them nesting on our roofs but what do we expect when we've built houses on their natural environment. I get a pair every year on my roof and yep it can be annoying, but my house is on top of a cliff at the seaside, where else are they gonna raise their little ones.

It must be a quiet news week or something though with all the hysteria about the dangers of gulls, it'll probably be urban foxes next week who'll be the whipping boys in the media, but it's jellyfish season now so maybe we'll have headlines about the dangers of swimming in the sea first.
I know one thing, I like living in Britain if the most dangerous animals the papers get dramatic about are our gulls.
All the panic about gulls here makes me wonder how anyone manages to stay alive in countries like Australia and all their killer wildlife lol

originally posted by: grainofsand
a reply to: woogleuk
even if they are basically flying rats

Noooo, that's pigeons....Gulls are often referred to as sh**ehawks.

I do like pigeons though, my grandfather had huts full of them to race.

Despite my posts, I do agree with you that the most humane way of combating these vicious psychotic cumberbulbs numbers is to go for the eggs. But I would also suggest that councils put better waste control methods into practise to keep them from coming inland so much.

The swifts at my location will swoop people. They're an amazing bird to watch but they can be dangerous!

a reply to: woogleuk

Haha, the pigeons round here play second fiddle to the gulls and have to be content with crumbs at best.
I like pigeons as well, if I'm sat eating a pasty or something in town I always tempt a couple to perch on my arm for my crumbs.
I'm not very generous with my pasties

...we have 'seagull proof' canvas type huge bags from the council to put our rubbish in if your wheelie bin is full.
Putting a standard black plastic bin bag out now is as outrageous in my society as leaving your dogs poo on the pavement. Neighbours would proper kick off about anyone stupid enough to do that, it's the norm here now.

And just for the chuckle here is one of my favourite vids of a thieving gull...

Don't worry, it's just the start of a real life " Zoo " .

Eventually, you'd think animals would catch on, we sure aren't all as a whole getting smarter, so somewhere, the balance between animals and humans will be uneven.

As mankind keeps invading into other animals habitats without a equilibrium to be struck, then outcomes like this will be the result.

I'm no animals activist, but just like earth, animals will always find a way.

We need to learn to work with what's on this planet and not against, without them, we all suffer.

We used to have a lot of gulls around our way a few years back (Wokingham, Berkshire - they travel quite far inland) but that seems to have solved itself now as the re-introduction of Red Kites into the area seems to have them on the run.. Now all I hear, instead of the horrible noise the gulls make is the "eeeee-eeee" from the Kites as they swoop about.

Maybe some re-introduction of a raptor species at the coast might help?

Failing that, do what I do to urban pigeons (another brazen pest who'll swoop at you) - punch them...

This is a rather sad fact about gulls: RSPB link about Herring Gulls

Their breeding population has declined from 750,000 pairs in 1993 to 378,000 pairs according to the most recent figures.

One of the main reasons for the decline is the lack of food for them in the coastal environment. The overfishing of UK coastal waters and warming seas caused by climate change are likely to be the main reasons for the reduced amount of food available to gulls and other seabirds.

Due to the lack of fish, the fishing fleets have also now dwindled, which has reduced the amount of fish processing waste that used to be discarded and was scavenged by gulls.

Poor buggers, it's no wonder they've taken to thieving.

We have enormous crows near my work feeding off of fast food remains.When you drive by them,they don't even move,it's like they are challenging you.The Birds movie still scares me to this day.What a masterpiece.

a reply to: grainofsand

That's just one of the many types of Gull - there be quite a few..

But yes, we're mostly to blame as we leave too much easy food around, which has a double edged effect. It makes their populations larger as they have easy, plentiful food and it also makes them fear us less.

That said, I do like their sound at the seaside..

originally posted by: stumason


That said, I do like their sound at the seaside..

Not so great at 3am further ashore.....

GoS posted further up that their population is dwindling, yet there seems to be more of them than ever here on the North west coast. It must be just certain areas where they are disappearing, and congregating in vast numbers elsewhere.

I like your bird of prey suggestion, I'm seriously going to propose it to Allerdale borough council.

a reply to: stumason

Ah yes I know the other gulls as well, that's why I specified herring gull
They are also the ones closest to my heart because they are the overwhelmingly dominant gull population in my area, and do all the thieving.

Nobody who lives here all year feeds the gulls, just the stupid tourists and people who temp it here in their holiday homes. But...if it turns out that our herring gull population is now clinging on with wasted/donated/stolen food from humans because we ate all the fish, then I wish them the same luck as I do for urban foxes.

a reply to: grainofsand

I'm no coastal dweller, but I have a lot of family down on the SW coast so I sympathise. I don't feed them, just like I don't feed the pigeons we have (used to, anyway, the Kites seem to like them as well).

I've had a bag of chips literally stolen out of my hands in Weymouth a few years back though - sometimes, no matter how careful you are, the buggers will just rob you!

originally posted by: woogleuk
a reply to: grainofsand

Because the humble crow had an awesome film named after it......don't see too many Gull related action packed movies!

What about Under Siege, and Marked for Death with Steven Seagull...

(There's no tumbleweed emoticon, so this'll do!)

a reply to: stumason

Haha, they are pretty amazing!
I had a chicken burger stolen from my hands a couple of years ago as I was just about to take my first bite.
I felt more shame than anything, everyone knows you keep your food close to your chest with a bowed head over it in certain areas.

I was a fantastic perfectly aimed strike though, I felt the rush of the downdraught from it's wings and in a millisecond or two the burger was out of my hands and flying away.
I think they are amazing birds.

a reply to: grainofsand

That shop is just around the corner from me, so I know the scurries very well. Scurry is a local term for seagulls.

They are very aggressive up here in Aberdeen and the surrounding areas, where they regularly attack people walking down the street.

To give you some context, they brought in a Hawk to protect the area and it was harassed out of the area by the gulls, they absolutely give no sh***.

Even ing Express

I love birds but gulls can be a little aggressive especially if you have food. 10 years ago a flock of them kept swooping me until I had no chips left in my bag. They didn't steal any I just lost them as I was running. They were big. I'm not scared of birds but I can see why people can be. I think greed takes over their fear of us.

The only time ive feared for my life was in Mykonos, trying to get the local pelican to come over to me so I could get a good close up photo. Chips again got it to come close but it got too close and opened its beak then this large sack flapped around under it like a large ball bag which I wasnt expecting. A flock of those would be terrifying.

a reply to: mclarenmp4

When they work together it's not surprising a hawk would sack it off as a bad idea.

Up until a month or so ago I had been feeding my cat outside but once the gulls clocked it she had no chance. She's smaller than the average gull and lets face it, to her they've got swordlike beaks so she backed off.
They can tell the time as well because I still get them on the wall waiting and watching at the times I usually feed the cat.

Oh God I can see it already...this reminds me of something from childhood (which lasted well into adulthood) that emotionally traumatized my sister and me and I am certain similar situations to mine will arise in the UK.

I live between a couple places but my American home throughout childhood was bought when I was almost three years old and nearly thirty years later I have the same house. Its in a town where we have fewer birds than average because of the climate. The birds we do have are incredibly varied and, some would say "luckily," pigeons aren't all THAT common. You get three or four each week you will spot outside or out the window but they tend to land, look around, and fly off within a minute. In all those years I've never noticed areas of bird defication and that says a lot since I live in a neighborhood of estates built up inside a tangerines, grapefruit, orange, Angelo, lemon, and lime grove.

My neighbor across the street was a nice Mormon man with a family I still love to death but he had a real problem I will never understand. He was so disgusted by pigeons that he put feeders all over his property with poison and his house was outlined in that bird razor-wire which was not needed and was an eyesore. Every day it seemed like I'd wake up to more dead animals in our yard, something unheard of to the many many neighbors I asked about it so I'm sure his feeders were the problem. The saddest part was I can only recall a handful of "pigeons" ever being killed (one grey and purple stereotypical pigeon is all I remember all the others were the soft colored small ones, white winged doves, or this beautiful pink blue and iridescent grey dove). Then there'd be squirrels, jackrabbits, ducks and even a cat we'd just got since he even poisoned a water source. I confronted him about it once and he just pat me hard once on the back calling me buddy and said who cares if he keeps those damn pigeons away. It was at such a point when I was real young my sister and I would sob relentlessly til mom rounded us up, had dad quickly hide the animal, then shed take us back out and say, "see honey either it was asleep or someone lost his or her stuffed animal and must have came and found it," which always worked somehow. I don't see how my parents never reported it, it was beyond animal cruelty. Even more incomprehensible was me, an animal lover and vegetarian, trying to fathom how this seemingly nice intelligent neighbor could talk about animals and their living or dying so easily and with no emotion. How do people not feel anything when they choose to take heaps of thinking feeling souls away for nothing more than the delusion of cleanliness?

So here it starts, people who are so bombarded, not by seagulls, but by REPORTS of seagulls and with the combination of not having sympathy and a boring life they're desperate to do something in so even though they may not be effected by the whole seagulls phenomenon, they set up some type of inhumane pigeon control to make themselves feel useful or something and believe me, even if you aren't an animal lover, it is a hideous experience stepping over different stages of decomposed bodies every day everywhere.

So all I have to add to this story is anyone thinking they MUST take this matter into his or her own hands, please give it a month or two first. Hell maybe it's a weird astronomical thing like some mass beachings are or perhaps there's a more sinister manmade reason they're temporarily on the offense. But speaking from experience I can assure you, any living thing that eats, sniffs, licks what a gull does, drinks where a gull would...these animals will account for 98% of your genius plans pile of corpses...and those corpses lying all about could be just as dangerous, tho in a different manner, than a few groups of angry seagulls. Flocks of seagulls. Swarms of seagulls? Murders of seagulls? Colonies? Meh whatever.