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Hmm, 12 July. I hope theres a lot of incontinent seagulls over Orange parades.
 
I live about as far from the sea as it's possible to get in the British Isles but when I was growing up seagulls were a very common sight. However this area at least seems to be bucking the trend as I see far fewer gulls now than I did then - in fact I see so few that I actually notice them when I do. (Erm, I think that make sense).

I suspect the reason for this drop in population may be a revival in the population of many types of birds of prey in the countryside surrounding the town - including the return of ravens and buzzards which had virtually disappeared until quite recently. (Okay, a raven isn't strictly speaking a bird of prey, but I'd lay odds on one against a seagull). If I recall correctly the impact of birds of prey on other birds is not necessarily a case of predation (many are simply too small to take a full-grown seagull) but of the fact that the presence of predators has a negative effect on breeding patterns.

My local council once tried employing a falconer, not to kill the pigeons, but to unsettle them, thereby reducing their breeding capacity to a more natural level. Unfortunately there was uproar among the madoldbiddy brigade who thought the birds were being slaughtered - ironic because it's those pigeon/seagull-feeding (not to mention cat-loving) individuals among us who are doing more damage to the native bird population than a bus-load of Sparrowhawks ever could.
 
Was the possibility of putting a type of contraceptive pill for pigeons in pigeon feed an urban myth? :?

No! found this but it is ten years old
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/257284.stm

So every method listed there is ineffective - they come back! ugh.
 
Tourists warned they will be fined £2,500 for feeding the seagulls at a Suffolk resort
Holidaymakers have been warned they could be fined £2,500 for feeding chips to seagulls at an upmarket resort in Suffolk where the birds have become a "serious pest".
By Lucy Cockcroft
Published: 10:25AM BST 17 Aug 2009

Council officials have put up signs warning of the penalty around the town of Aldeburgh, the home of the late composer Benjamin Britten.

They claim the area is 'under siege' from seagulls and hope the fine will deter people from offering them titbits, which encourages the birds to swoop down and steal food.

Many holidaymakers who visit picturesque Aldeburgh, famed for its shingle beach and fisherman's huts, have reported close shaves with attacking seagulls in scenes reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's classic horror film The Birds.

The town also attracts thousands of people in June for the internationally renounced Aldeburgh Festival, started by Britten in 1948 to celebrate classical music, and councillors claim many of the visitors have complained of sleepless nights due to the raucous calls of the gulls.

However the fine, a joint initiative by Suffolk Coastal District Council and Aldeburgh Town Council, has been criticised for being "over the top".

Caroline Hobden, 40, of Mayfield, East Sussex, said: "The seagulls are pests – but it does seem rather a severe penalty."

Susie Squires, spokeswoman for the TaxPayers' Alliance, said the penalty was entirely out of proportion to the scale of the offence.

She said: ''This fine seems unreasonably large. Obviously the council does not want to encourage seagulls but this is ridiculous.

''You do not want to heckle and nanny people. £2,500 is out of all proportion and the punishment does not fit the crime.

''While seagulls are a pest children are very capable of dropping a chip, resulting in parents or grandparents getting stuck with a fine.''

The signs warn: "Please do feed the gulls. Feeding encourages them to pester for food. It is also a littering offence. Maximum penalty – £2,500."

The same notice also states that anyone allowing a dog on the beach during the summer months could be fined a maximum of just £500.

The fine is the maximum payable if an offender is taken to court under anti-littering legislation in the Environmental Protection Act.

However, the council insist that offenders will only face being taken to court if they refuse to pay an on-the-spot penalty of £80 which is reduced to £40 if paid within 14 days.

Viv Hotten, a Suffolk Coastal District Council spokesman, said: "The maximum fine might seem heavy-handed, but seagulls are a serious problem in Aldeburgh.

"There is a real issue with fish and chip papers left littering the seafront and the seagulls love to scavenge the chips and food scraps.

"They get so used to scavenging chips that they swoop down and annoy people trying to eat on the beach.

"We just hope the signs will be a deterrent and people will use their common sense and dispose of their fish and chip papers properly in the bins provided."

The signs have been up since the start of the summer, but a spokesman for Aldeburgh Town Council said no one had been fined for feeding the seagulls yet.

In 2002 Gwynedd County Council introduced fines of £50 for feeding seagulls after a pensioner collapsed and died minutes after being attacked by the birds.

And in 2006 a young boy was handed a £50 on-the-spot fine for feeding half a chip to a seagull during his lunch break in Ipswich, Suffolk.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... esort.html
 
Investigative reporting for the silly season.... 8)

Revealed: seagulls' favourite ice cream
Maurading seagulls that are blighting Britain's seaside resorts are starting to get picky about the kind of ice cream they are willing to steal.
By Ian Johnston and Richard Gray
Published: 9:00AM BST 23 Aug 2009

With their noisy calls and voracious appetite they are a distinctive feature of the British seaside.

But relations between humans and seagulls are becoming fraught. Holidaymakers have complained of being "mugged" by fearless seagulls stealing chips, sandwiches and ice cream.

Resorts are considering ways to curb gull populations, including the use of squadrons of falcons and hawks. One council is imposing fines up to £2,500 on people caught feeding the birds.

So The Sunday Telegraph, with apologies to more august scientific institutions, set out to test just how daring Britain's seagulls can be – and to discover which is their favourite ice cream variety.

We headed for St Ives, Cornwall, where shops display warning signs that "Seagulls like ice cream too" and traders advise: "Keep your food close and keep it low."

For our experiment we purchased 20 ices, five each of four different kinds: vanilla cones, strawberry cones, orange lollies and choc-ices on sticks. We took one or two bites of each then held it until it melted, to see whether the winged raiders would strike.

The first positive result came as our reporter was sitting on the harbour beach, cone in hand. Suddenly a herring gull flashed over his shoulder, grabbed a beakful of strawberry ice cream and swooped off.

Then came strike after strike in rapid succession, perhaps five in total, the last an attack by multiple birds which prompted our reporter to abandon the cone and beat a retreat.

A vanilla cone – with a dollop of clotted cream on top, in the local fashion – quickly attracted another gull which left a beak-shaped impression. Moments later, it was plucked whole from our reporter's hand.

In all our 20 tests led to six attacks, suggesting that an unaware tourist has a one-in-three chance of falling victim. Strawberry ice cream cones proved the most enticing, with three out of five taken. Second most popular were vanilla cones, with two out of five attacked. Only one of the choc ices was pecked at, and none of the orange lollies.

Sunbather Georgia Coops, 45, a gardener on holiday from London, reported that her son Oliver, 10, had had his ice cream stolen.

"It was a chocolate ice cream and he is convinced that they like those ones the best," she said.

"We bring this tent to the beach so the kids can eat their food in it. It's just too dangerous to sit outside and eat."

However, on the day we witnessed no injuries and the birds displayed no signs of direct aggression towards our reporter. Indeed, one bird defended him by chasing away other gulls before returning to stand quietly nearby, giving his ice cream a longing look.

This protective trait has been exploited for 10 years by Maria Chaffin, of Carbis Bay, near St Ives.

"We have had two seagulls, Simone and Garfunkel, for 10 years," she said. "We feed them so they keep the others away.

"They are very territorial and if other seagulls come on our roof, they are seen off in no uncertain terms. I think they are beautiful creatures."

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildli ... cream.html
 
How do they know seagulls don't have the variety of taste preferences that people do? As we don't have fish flavoured ice cream, we'll never really know.
 
I went to Hornsea on the east coast this week, we were sat eating fish & chips on the seafront when my four year old daughter asked where the seagulls were. I hadn't noticed but we weren't being bombarded by them. While we were on the beach I counted about ten altogether flying over the sea. Later in the afternoon I saw quite a lot at Hornsea Mere (inland lake) but they were all on the wing.
They must have gone to Brid for the day ;)
 
Don't mess with the bird: Hawk the slayer protects the citizens of ToyTown
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:44 AM on 18th September 2009

Perched ominously on the church tower, the giant hawk stares down on the wedding party below.
Evoking memories of a 1960s Twilight Zone episode, or perhaps a 1970s B-movie, the outsized portent of doom looks ready to attack the villagers at the slightest provocation.
However, Kai the Hawk is a protector of the people - he's protecting the model village from angry seagulls and herons looking for a free lunch.

The bird of prey - with a wingspan of four feet - is acting as a burly security guard to watch over the miniature world.
Seagulls which have been wreaking havoc by frightening visitors and vandalising parts of the attraction - [were] stealing lunch from customers and pecking at the tiny buildings and houses, and perhaps abducting a miniature person or two.
But staff at Babbacombe Model Village in Devon - who also run a bird of prey centre - say the pests have stayed away since Kais introduction last week.

General manager Simon Wills said they had experimented with a variety of birds of prey and found the hawk to be 'most effective'.
He said: 'The hawk has worked wonders. Visitors enjoy watching the bird and it keeps the seagulls away from their lunch and the models at the same time.
'There have been many occasions where seagulls have stolen lunch from the customers and made a nuisance of themselves in other ways.
'They have been wreaking havoc, but ever since we brought in the hawk they have completely disappeared. There hasn't been one.

He added: 'It works well because the bird is very territorial. We tried different types of birds including a variety owls but found the hawk was most effective.
'He must look very large and menacing against the miniature buildings of the village because it really does the trick.'

Simon said the bird had also helped to scare off herons which had been stealing rare goldfish from the pond at the attraction.
He added: 'The herons used to wait by the pond all day and would help itself to breakfast, lunch and dinner from it.
'It was a nightmare because a lot of the goldfish were very valuable and we had no way of stopping the herons. But the hawk keeps them away too.'

The attraction was opened 40 years ago when architect Thomas Dobbins decided to recreate the quintessential English rural community.
Everything at the model village is 1/12th scale and there are more than 400 models to house 13,000 tiny people.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0RXhIvOMn
 
Birds of prey deployed in Rhyl to stop seagull attacks on shoppers
Home Staff

Birds of prey are to be deployed in North Wales to stop seagulls attacking shoppers. The Coastal Hawks Project will put hawks and falcons on patrol in Rhyl, with their handlers wearing medieval dress.

Mike Espley, a Rhyl councillor, said he came up with the idea after witnessing 30 seagull attacks on shoppers in a single day.

The first patrols, planned for March 1, will include a European eagle owl, two Harris hawks and a peregrine saker falcon. Three unemployed people will be trained at a Welshpool falconry centre to take part in the project. Mr Espley said the birds will always be tethered to the handlers, and will not be allowed to fly.

“The presence of the birds of prey will be enough to get rid of the seagulls. We are not aiming to hurt them. This is their home as well as ours, but there have been far too many attacks on people. It couldn’t continue.”

He said that as well as being a deterrent, the birds would will be a tourist attraction. “The handlers will be dressed in medieval costume and will give talks about them during the summer months and seasonal breaks.” Mr Espley said that if the project is a success, he hopes to extend it along the North Wales coast

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 975976.ece
 
Amazing pictures capture moment a puffin was mugged by a greedy gull
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:46 AM on 27th January 2010

These amazing images capture the moment a puffin was the victim of a mid-air mugging by a greedy gull.

The puffin got a nasty shock when it the raider swooped in to snatch a haul of sand eels from its beak.

The smaller seabird, which would have had to work hard for its beakful of fish, was taken totally by surprise during the airborne smash-and-grab.

Unable to fight off the larger bird, the shocked puffin simply plopped to the ground as the black headed gull made off with most of its catch.

Award-winning amateur photographer Lee Davis managed to capture the aerial ambush as he was taking pictures of puffins on the Farne Islands off the Northumberland cost.

The large-billed seabirds, which grow to around a foot tall, nest on the islands and feed on a variety of small fish.

They are famed for their ability to grab and hold a number of fish in their beak at once - a practice which made this one a target.

Mr Davis, 26, said he was just about to leave the island when he spotted the puffin fly round the headland, presumably taking its catch back to a hungry brood of chicks.

The gentle seabirds can catch and hold several fish at the same time
He said: 'I saw the puffin about 6ft off the ground, began to track it and as it got closer I spotted it had a beak full of sand eels.

'Just as the puffin flew close enough for me to get a shot I saw the gull swoop in from above and go straight for the eels.

'The gull managed to snatch a load from the puffin's beak and the poor puffin dropped straight to the floor.

'The gull must have been pretty pleased and flew off with a mouth full of eels and the puffin with only a few left.'

Mr Davis, a mortgage advisor from Leeds, added: 'Puffins leave the nest for a couple of hours at a time so that could have been the result of a fairly long fishing trip.

'Black headed gulls on the Farnes sometimes mob puffins in the hope they might drop a few sand eels to be left alone, but it was very unusual this one actually made impact.

'I was pretty shocked but even more surprised when I looked at the back of my camera and saw I had managed to get such a good shot.'

Atlantic puffins nest in burrows on the Farne Islands, under boulders or in rocky crevices. There are thought to be up to 50,000 pairs at any one time, making the islands a draw for naturalists.

Black-headed gull tend to grow to around 1ft 6ins tall, with a wingspan of up to 3ft 6ins.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0do4JLNVb
 
They come over 'ere an' they pinch our fish... :lol:
 
Truro pensioners' action call over seagull attacks
Page last updated at 16:59 GMT, Thursday, 17 June 2010 17:59 UK

A man from Cornwall has described how he was left with blood pouring down his face when he was attacked by a seagull which swoops whenever he leaves home.

Some birds have built a nest on the roof of Gerry Myers' house in Mitchell Hill, Truro, and when he or neighbours leave their homes the gulls attack.

Seventy-nine-year-old Mr Myers and elderly neighbour Doug Bishop say they have both received scalp wounds.

The RSPB said the gulls were protecting their nest.

It said the problem should disappear when the gulls' chicks have flown.

Mr Myers told BBC News the attack had left him shaken and bleeding.

"It just swooped down and attacked me from behind and I didn't have anything to fight it off with.

"The blood was just pouring down my face and I couldn't see."

Mr Myers said he now only leaves home "dressed for battle" wearing a hat and carrying a stick to ward off the gulls. :twisted:

The RSPB says it is possible to get a licence to deal with nuisance birds, if the circumstances are extreme.

"To take any control measures for adult birds, you have to apply for a special licence from Defra," RSPB spokesman Tony Whitehead said.

"So whilst they are protected you can, for certain reasons such as health and safety, apply for a licence."

Mr Whitehead said the aggressive behaviour of the herring gulls in Mitchell Hill was atypical of adults protecting their young.

"It's no consolation to the poor chaps who've been attacked and we really do commiserate with that, because it's not a pleasant thing to happen," he said.

"But what you've got is a bird on the nest that's protecting its territory."

The best, if "slightly bizarre" advice, is to carry an open umbrella when going in or out of your home, Mr Whitehead added.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/corn ... 342416.stm
 
Kondoru said:
So vermin are protected but people are not?
So it seems.

(But it's probably not PC to talk about vermin... :roll: )

Anyhow, the idea that seagulls are protecting their young is rubbish - seagulls in town nest on roofs and chimneys, where humans hardly ever go.

Fair enough if someone is climbing up a drain-pipe, but nonsense if they're just walking down their garden path. But other birds behave in this (to us) irrational way, which is probably why we call them bird brains.
 
Birds are like that.

And the RSPB would be first to destroy vermin if they were a threat to dinosaurs.
 
Seagull attacks in Devon disrupt mail deliveries
Page last updated at 17:42 GMT, Wednesday, 23 June 2010 18:42 UK

Post deliveries have been disrupted in a Devon seaside town after attacks by seagulls.

About 20 seagulls have been swooping on people, including postal workers, in Berry Drive, Paignton.

Now the Royal Mail has warned residents it will not be able to deliver post if its workers feel threatened.

The seagulls have been causing problems for the past two weeks as they defend their chicks which have dropped to the ground from nests on the roofs.

The Royal Mail said it was "committed" to delivering to people's addresses, "but occasionally might not be able to due to the attacks".

A spokesperson said: "There have been recent incidents where our staff have been attacked by up to 20 seagulls making it difficult to access all addresses in the street.

"We continue to make every effort to get mail to customers."

It said if a delivery was not possible, it would attempt to deliver at the "next possible opportunity".

Mother-of-two Vicki Sheehy, who lives in Berry Drive, said just going outside her house was dangerous.

"It's like in the film, The Birds," she said.

"You have to pick your moments, to make sure the coast is clear.

"We use a golfing umbrella as protection because they can be quite vicious."

Nesting seagulls have caused problems in past years.

"I feel most sorry for the children round here because they can't go out and play," said Mrs Sheehy, 48.

"You see them running back into the houses because the seagulls will not let up.

"Last night we did not get to sleep until four o'clock because of the noise. The slightest movement outside sets them off."

Problem seagulls can be culled, said the RSPB, but only with a licence from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

RSPB spokesman Tony Whitehead said: "We commiserate with people, but the problem will not last.

"Once the chicks have fledged they will go away."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/10393326.stm
 
rynner2 said:
Anyhow, the idea that seagulls are protecting their young is rubbish - seagulls in town nest on roofs and chimneys, where humans hardly ever go.

Fair enough if someone is climbing up a drain-pipe, but nonsense if they're just walking down their garden path. But other birds behave in this (to us) irrational way, which is probably why we call them bird brains.

Australian Magpies have a certain area that they consider their own when nesting and if you go anywhere near it (and I mean within 30 metres) they will swoop the shite out of you. Standard practise where I live is to send kids to school in Spring with ice cream cartons on their heads to make sure they're not injured.

I don't see much difference here, apart from that seagulls don't usually get that territorial.
 
Far from the sea, urban seagulls terrorise skies
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Saturday, 28 August 2010

Britain's population of urban seagulls, the source of increasing complaints about dirt, health threats, noise and attacks on people, is now rising so fast that it may reach one million birds by 2020 if concerted action is not taken to manage the problem.

The national population is likely to be "substantially over 100,000 pairs" or 200,000 individuals, according to the leading expert on urban gulls, Peter Rock, an adviser to a string of councils in the South-west which are blighted by the urban gull invasion, among them Bristol, Bath and Gloucester.

The Government, however, has long claimed that there are only about 30,000 pairs – and has just turned down funding for the first serious research project on the ecology of urban gulls, which would seek to understand why their numbers seem to be exploding.

But pressure is mounting on the Government to recognise that what in the past has been seen as little more than a joke has become a serious environmental concern.

The phenomenon of the big urban gull colony is fairly recent: populations in towns and cities began to grow noticeably only in the early 1990s, mostly of herring gulls and their close relatives, lesser black-backed gulls.

But what is not understood is why urban gulls are flourishing, while herring gulls in the wild, in colonies in the countryside, and on the coastline, are in steep decline, and have been placed on the "Red List" of threatened species.

Don Foster, the Liberal Democrat MP for Bath, a city which now has nearly 1,000 pairs of the birds nesting on its rooftops after their population doubled in six years, said yesterday: "The fact that no research is going to be done on this is more than daft, it's barking mad. It still appears that unless you've actually experienced the problem, as have many towns and cities now, you sort of think it's a bit of a joke.

"But when you start to see the level of damage these gulls are causing to buildings and the environment generally, you realise that it's a really serious issue."


Mr Foster is one of two MPs who have formally raised the issue of urban gulls with the Government via adjournment debates in the House of Commons in the past 18 months, as concern has grown.

In April 2009, he told MPs that the birds caused "significant problems to many people, and cost individuals, businesses and local councils a great deal of money". And he went on to paint a picture of "faeces deposited on tables, chairs and other furniture outside catering premises, creating a health hazard; stone pavements and steps rendered slippery by freshly deposited faeces, creating safety hazards; aggression towards pedestrians in public spaces and gardens, which is extremely frightening; and the pecking-open of refuse sacks, which leaves debris and encourages other vermin, creating further health problems."

In February this year, Parmjit Dhanda, then the MP for Gloucester, a town whose urban gull population doubled in five years and which now has 2,800 pairs nesting on its rooftops, raised exactly the same concerns in another adjournment debate. But although government representatives made sympathetic noises in both cases, they declined the MPs' principal request, which was for scientific research into the gulls' rapidly rising numbers.

Mr Foster said: "In Bath we've currently got 980 breeding pairs, so with other non-breeding adults we've got about 2,500 gulls in the city. We're seeing more and more of them, but we don't know enough about urban gulls and what attracts them, and we need research to find out."

etc...

http://www.independent.co.uk/environmen ... 64013.html
 
Wildlife host told off after feeding birds

Television wildlife presenter Chris Packham has been told off by police for feeding seagulls while filming a BBC show on the Isles of Scilly.

Concerned onlookers at Porthcressa on St Mary's contacted officers after Mr Packham started putting food down for the scavenging birds.

The Springwatch host was trying to get shots of seagulls for a new TV series, Animals' Guide To Britain, which looks at how the birds have adapted to living alongside humans.

But notices on the beach specifically ask people not to feed the gulls, which it is feared would encourage them to aggressively scavenge for food like they do on the mainland.

Pc Mat Collier, of the Isles of Scilly police, said he simply offered the TV presenter some "words of advice."

"It was a very well-intentioned film but he got a little bit too enthusiastic in trying to attract the gulls.
"We had a word with them because we got a couple of comments from the public.
"There was no police action taken, it was just words of advice."

Julie Love, volunteer and education manager for the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust, said: "It's a bit of an oversight on their side.

"Locally we don't encourage anybody to feed gulls. The gulls on the Isles of Scilly are unique in that they are not urbanised. They are among the few in the country that don't rely on waste to live.
"They have got lots of natural habitat here and we don't want them to become a nuisance."

A spokeswoman for the BBC apologised for any offence caused during the filming of the show, which is expected to be aired in April.

"Chris Packham was filming a sequence that shows how well adapted seagulls have become at living alongside humans and addresses the issues of their scavenging behaviour.
"We were in no way condoning or encouraging people to feed seagulls. The team had all the relevant filming permits and had checked with the council that it was not against any bylaws.
"The team is sorry if anybody took offence. Filming ceased as soon as the policeman had spoken to them."

http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/news/Wi ... ticle.html

:twisted:
 
Bridlington tourists targeted by chip-stealing seagulls

Fish and chip shops in Bridlington have put up signs warning customers about being attacked by seagulls.
Seafront chip shop owner Justin Carpenter said he was now losing money because of the number of chip thefts.
He said he was giving out more free bags of chips in compensation for the ones stolen by the birds.

East Riding of Yorkshire Council said they were aware of the situation and warned tourists not to encourage the attacks by feeding the birds.
The council said: "This is not a new phenomenon, it's part of being at the seaside.
"There are a lot of young seagulls around at the moment that need feeding which could be making the situation worse. Our advice is don't feed the birds and don't drop litter."

Mr Carpenter said that the attacks were affecting his profits.
"The seagulls dive-bomb them, just take their food and there is nothing you can do about it," he said.
"So the customers come back to us and we feel obliged to give them the food to reimburse them, and that's us losing money."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-14129164

I'm amazed at the cheek of customers who go back to the chippie when their food is stolen! It's not the proprietor's fault if they're careless with their purchase.
 
In about 1999 I met my brother in a car park in Yeovil. I'd not been to his new house before and he needed something from a DIY store so I met him there and we drove in file back to his house, me behind. As we left Yeovil, doing about 20 miles an hour (out of the town centre), a Crow swooped down, flew level with his window and screeched and made a furious pecking motion at him, actually tapping the glass with his beak. My brother is a jumpy sort and it alarmed him somewhat, he swerved all over the road and then actually.

I laughed like a child and when we arrived at his house I was somewhat surprised to see just how flustered the incident had made him. We went down the pub and he calmed down a bit but neither of us have ever forgotten it. I guess it must have been something glinting in the sun that caught the birds eye, but at the time it looked like the Crow was attacking my brother inside his own car!
 
Ministers declare war on plague of urban seagulls
Nets, spikes and culling don't work, so scientists are being asked to come up with a definitive solution
By Matt Chorley, Political Correspondent
Sunday, 11 September 2011

They may provide the soundtrack for a trip to the seaside, but the invasion of gulls in towns and cities across the country has created such havoc that they are now routinely branded "rats with wings".

Now the Government is poised to launch a research project that will aim to find a permanent solution for the noise, mess, disease and aggression that blights ever more of urban Britain.

One bid for a study into the eating, nesting and breeding patterns of urban gulls was turned down in June last year, as the axe fell on swathes of government spending. However, the environment minister, Richard Benyon, has now agreed to "look at the research proposal from Bristol University to see if it could deliver new measures to tackle the problem" once and for all.

Total numbers of herring gulls, the most common bird traditionally seen at the seaside, are actually falling, down 60 per cent in the last 30 years. Numbers of the lesser black-backed gull have fallen by 30 per cent in 25 years. As a result, they have been identified as species in decline that need protection. However, in towns and cities their populations are soaring, though not enough to compensate for their overall decline.

Gulls began nesting on roofs in towns and cities in the 1940s, as the post-war boom led to the emergence of landfill sites, as increasing amounts of food were thrown away, coupled with a ban on burning rubbish.

"When I see photos of gulls on piles of rubbish, I don't see the gulls as the problem, it's the rubbish," said Tony Whitehead, a spokesman for the RSPB. "We have got to get a grip of the rubbish problem; it's as simple as that. And we need a more strategic approach to gull-proofing buildings. There is no point simply gull-proofing one or two buildings because they just move elsewhere."

As numbers have grown, a whole industry has emerged promising to drive the birds out of town. Netting for a large roof can cost up to £70,000. But spikes and tension wires on window ledges and plastic decoy birds such as eagles have done little to halt the surge in numbers.

In Bath, tourists and residents alike have been plagued by a colony which at one stage was growing by almost 25 per cent each year. The council spends £10,000 annually on fighting the problem, including using artificial eggs to convince the gulls to settle down and brood, and experimenting with stronger refuse bags.

Don Foster, the local MP who has lobbied the Government for more research, said: "The current methods simply are not working. The problems are getting worse, and unless we understand what it is that makes them so successful, we are not going to be able to find a solution."

The Bristol University research project, expected to last three years and to cost around £400,000, could begin as early as next February, with satellite tracking devices fitted to birds. The gull expert Peter Rock, who will head the research, said: "Gulls are at the high end of animal intelligence. In the past couple of decades the pest control industry has had a fair crack of the whip at offering possible solutions. The fact is they haven't worked. Either we understand what we are dealing with or we continue to spend loads of money to no effect."

But do not expect the team to recommend a cull. "We need to find solutions that are socially acceptable," Mr Rock adds. "Shooting in towns would require an army."

http://www.independent.co.uk/environmen ... 52872.html
 
Gulls in Guernsey are dying from unknown causes. The GSPA are conducting autopsies and hospitalising [sic] birds that have been found lethargic and unable to stand.
 
I was in the town centre this afternoon, heading for my bus, when I saw a bloke in front of me, heading away from KFC with a box of munchies. He picked out a lump of chicken to take a bite, but a seagull swooped from behind him and stole it from his fingers! (And he spilled most of the rest of the box in the process.)

This happened in a flash, almost. Even if I'd had my camera out, ready to shoot, I don't think I'd have got a picture. I'd have needed to be shooting video at the time it happened to capture the moment.

Anyway, cause enough to issue a reminder: if eating outdoors in a seagull infested area, make sure the wind is at your back (not in your face), as then the gull can't hover behind you, waiting for the moment to swoop.
 
I'd have been laughing too much to take a picture in those circumstances :lol:
 
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