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Original poster

Why are seagulls such a pain?!

239 replies

Fillyfrog · 07/05/2023 22:30

I actually think seagulls are the bane of most seaside resorts. We went to Llandudno in north Wales today, it's such a lovely place and been a favourite for many years. But today the seagulls were so awful, I saw countless people getting their food stolen from them to the point where instead of risking to eat our picnic on the front we ate it in the car! Some of the gulls are absolutely massive, I saw one steal a full ice cream from a toddler in her pram and I feel like it must have hurt, she was beside herself. They seemed worse than any other time I've been there.

Why do they do this? Do they not have enough food to eat? I know tourists must drop litter and food etc and I often think of seagulls like, eating some chips someone's dropped on the floor but when did it evolve to swooping in for people's sandwiches?! I can't imagine living somewhere seasidey with them there all the time 🙈

(light hearted thread)

OP posts:
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16
stbrandonsboat · 07/05/2023 23:39

Short film about a pair of seagulls raising their chicks. They are devoted parents.

One of the nicest things I saw last year was when I was hanging the washing on the line and I heard gulls calling high up in the sky. I looked up and there were about a dozen gulls just circling around on the thermals. They looked so pretty with their white feathers against the clear blue sky.

Life In The Colony - The life of the Herring Gull - From egg to first flight

Life In The Colony - The life of the Herring Gull - From egg to first flight. A short film that follows a pair of herring gulls as they raise and feed their ...

https://youtu.be/F_uS-lkJT8s

Mercy1968 · 07/05/2023 23:39

I m from Aberdeen and I like them. They nest on people s roofs in kincorth and waking up to them reminds me of my childhood when I m there.

You can tell the tourists though. They are the ones that stroll along the beach with chips and ice cream . Being brought up there I eat my chips in the cafe!

Nimbostratus100 · 07/05/2023 23:40

Boopydoo · 07/05/2023 23:24

A few years ago people thought it would be cute to share their food with them, so they'd throw them the odd chip down onto the floor. Seagulls learnt that people feed them. Doesn't take long for that to become 'oh look that chap/woman/child has food in their hands - come on boys, lunch is served'

And then people wonder why seagulls steal their food.

Pigeons behave in the same way in some places too.

The new 'cute' is to go to the woods/park with a bag of nuts for the squirrels and to sit and see how close you can get a squirrel to come to you to take a nut. Squirrels are so well-trained now that every time I walk into the local park they run up to me, and I'm not even shaking a bag enticingly at them!
In the next five to ten years, parents will be up in arms about the squirrels mugging their children in their buggies for their lunch/snacks/ice cream.
One day humans will realize what absolute twats we are, these are wild animals we are teaching to become dependent on us.

nothing "new" about that - it has been going on all my life - 60 years

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Mercy1968 · 07/05/2023 23:40

Oh and there s a YouTube film of one stealing crisps from the co op in Union Street. Clever birds.

Talipesmum · 07/05/2023 23:47

Humans have massively overfished the seas, and we often leave food trash lying around or feed them for a laugh. We took away much of their natural food resource, and provided them with a new one. It’s our fault, not the gulls.

Loria · 07/05/2023 23:48

@Boopydoo yes, agree re squirrels. Also, loads of bellends near me are feeding foxes, giving out like they're all starring in bloody Born Free. They'll soon be moaning once the buggers come in their patio doors and chew their kiddies' faces off. There's one absolute weapon on the local nextdoor app that leaves his leftover tea out for the foxes in a car park behind his house and then whinges if people drive over it/kick it about. I can't even begin to unpick the many aspects of fuckwittery that motivates guys like him.

darkerpatio · 07/05/2023 23:50

Wouldn't surprise me if there were seagulls posting on MN, doing their own PR. 😂

Thugs!

moggerhanger · 07/05/2023 23:53

Just to be a pedantic misery - no such thing as seagulls. Just gulls.

I'll get my coat...

Boopydoo · 07/05/2023 23:55

Nimbostratus100 · 07/05/2023 23:40

nothing "new" about that - it has been going on all my life - 60 years

Show quote history

The amount of people thinking they are cute and deciding to feed them is recent. Maybe I mean over the last twenty years (I'm in my 50's). As a child I was safe to eat in the streets, spent years of my adult life eating a pasty in the bag whilst walking through town.
I wouldn't risk it nowadays though. I've lived in a seaside town in Cornwall all my life and have witnessed the change in the gulls behaviour. My children in their buggies were safe to eat out and about, they are in their 20's now. Now you can't allow a child to eat out in the open and have witnessed young children in the family have food taken out of their hands on every occasion they are out in the open.

If you want to get away with eating outdoors then walk along close to the walls, make sure you are in an area where the gulls can't swoop at you and stare them out, they don't like that.

SH23B · 07/05/2023 23:56

I have family links with llandudno so am very familiar with the problems the seagulls present and have been on the end of food being stolen. They are a nuisance, but people (stupid people!) Feed them. We went on a boar trip last year round puffin island and the guide was explaining how its natural seagull behaviour for them to try and startle other birds into dropping food so they can get it. Made a lot of sense. I had a stand off in the car park with a gull after my ice cream later that day and it still won despite me knowing full well what it was up to! They are clever birds.

MrsSkylerWhite · 07/05/2023 23:59

Love them. We couldn’t go into the garden of our previous house when they were raising their young on our roof. Our dog would make a quick dash out for a pee and run straight back in. Still think they’re fantastic birds, though.

WhisperingAutistic · 08/05/2023 00:01

I love them but felt a bit sick watching one swallowing a dead blackbird a few days ago Confused

moggerhanger · 08/05/2023 00:04

A little while ago I - living well inland - did an emergency stop in my car to gaze at an absolute behemoth of a gull that was stooging around on a ploughed field. A Greater Black Backed Gull. It was majestic, and faintly terrifying. Ain't enough chips in all the world for that thing! https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/great-black-backed-gull/

Great Black Backed Gull Facts | Larus Marinus - The RSPB

A very large, thick-set black-backed gull, with a powerful beak. Adults are blacker than the smaller lesser black-backed gull. Find out more

https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/great-black-backed-gull

moggerhanger · 08/05/2023 00:04

WhisperingAutistic · 08/05/2023 00:01

I love them but felt a bit sick watching one swallowing a dead blackbird a few days ago Confused

Tidying up, see. Vultures get the same bad PR.

justgettingthroughtheday · 08/05/2023 00:09

They are the only birds I allow my dogs to semi chase! We were having a picnic last summer and dog was asleep under the table. Bastard seagulls started swooping about and so I woke the dog up and she patrolled us! Threatened to pounce at a few!
Needless to say she go the left overs as a treat

Boopydoo · 08/05/2023 00:14

moggerhanger · 08/05/2023 00:04

A little while ago I - living well inland - did an emergency stop in my car to gaze at an absolute behemoth of a gull that was stooging around on a ploughed field. A Greater Black Backed Gull. It was majestic, and faintly terrifying. Ain't enough chips in all the world for that thing! https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/great-black-backed-gull/

There's a lot more of those around these days too, I can remember my brother and I first spying the odd one or two we had in the town around four years ago. They are successfully breeding now and there are plenty to be seen. They are stunning, majestic birds.

Birdington · 08/05/2023 00:24

IfICouldIStillWouldNot · 07/05/2023 22:35

I understand that they are protected, but I also wonder if perhaps they need to be culled because they are a menace. Pigeons are controlled, I think gulls should be too. Sky vermin.

Horrible.

To answer your question op we did take away their natural habitat. They are also endangered so jo you can’t cull them. And they’re not vermin.

DeNeushoornHeeftEenHoorn · 08/05/2023 00:25

They are magnificent. I’d put money on them surviving the catastrophic climate destruction humans are subjecting the planet to and doing pretty well as the new dominant species in the next age - the Larucene.

Birdington · 08/05/2023 00:27

I actually rehabbed a seagull chick that nearly died in one of our recent hot summers. Beautiful bird.

Birdington · 08/05/2023 00:30

And humans are the vermin really aren’t we. We trash everything. Every single one of my neighbours has razed their garden for a twinkly grey seated sterile nightmare. So there’s no patches of hedge, grass or anything. Like I said we act more like vermin.

Chocolate376 · 08/05/2023 00:31

I've had Cornish pasties and icecreams literally snatched out of my hands in St Ives where the seagulls are more brazen than anywhere else I've experienced. It's quite unpleasant to eat outside, you have to be so careful, and keep your food covered by your hand the whole time. They also seem to know to pick specifically on children.

daisydalrymple · 08/05/2023 00:47

Yep, I live 2 mins away from Llandudno. Visitors need to understand you can’t stand in the street openly eating takeaway type food / ice creams, as the gulls see it as open invitation. Sadly because of the idiots who think it’s fun to feed them. They’re not human. They don’t differentiate between the idiots offering them food and those of us just trying to eat something in the street. They’re worse since covid. They sit on ours and neighbour’s roofs now. There’s a pattern of bird shit down both our roofs. Puts us off eating outside in the summer now 😢😢😢

pinkgown · 08/05/2023 01:01

It was interesting during the lockdown, when the scrap supply dried up, to see the seagulls catching little crabs and bringing them up onto the beach to eat them.

It's so long since I'd seen them do that I'd forgotten about it.

Pieceofpurplesky · 08/05/2023 01:05

It's nothing new. 30 Years ago I was sat on the steps by the sea in Llandudno and seagull swooped and nicked my sandwhich .

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