Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

A seagull just flew at me and snatched my sandwich out of my hand

157 replies

Deathbydolla · 27/06/2018 09:16

as above. Just purchased a sandwich from Costa, thought "weather is great, I'll eat outside" and before I knew it, a huge seagull comes out of nowhere, scratches me and steals my sandwich right out of my hand. CF at its finest.

AIBU to think that this is just plain rude?! Wink

OP posts:
Thread gallery
7
KurriKurri · 27/06/2018 13:16

I live in a coastal town, I have seagulls (herring gulls) nesting on my roof (and screaming all night). A sporty little brand new car that parked on my road last night has had an overnight respray in seagull shit.

Here they hang around in gangs, especially the brown adolescents, they mutter to themseves and strut up to you as you walk pass and say 'what you looking at eh ?' then strut back and snigger with their cool mates.

They walk into shops and steal things off the shelves. They loiter menacingly with fag ends dangling out of their beaks, kicking at old MacDonalds wrappers, daring you to unwittingly offend them.

One once stood on my pathway, wings on hips, and shouted 'fuck off, I live here now' when I tried to get to my front door.

On a more serious note, one of them killed my neighbours cat.Sad

Bastards all of them,

GahWhatever · 27/06/2018 13:24

DH was supporting a group of young adults from a care facility visiting the seaside when one of them had a whole battered fish snatched from the top of his tray of chips. He chased it for nearly a mile along the prom screaming obscenities while my DH ran after him trying to make him stop running and stop screaming so he could just buy him anew fish!

Lethaldrizzle · 27/06/2018 13:25

Water pistol!

Willow2017 · 27/06/2018 13:29

Total pia all of them (even if they are nice to look at)

Nesting time/chick rearing time is a bloody nightmare, you cant drive down some streets without weaving in and out fledglings strutting about and the adults too. You cant remove the nests from your roofs as its illegal, those pointy things on walls and rooftops dont work the feckers dont care.

Touristy sea town near me and it drives us mad when they feed the damm things. Even some of the more ignorant locals do it on the sea front in the fecking car park. "Oh look little 'Johnny' throw your chips to the birdies" Then they exit sharpish when a dozen of them swoop down wanting their share and us mugs parked in the car park just having a coffee and just enjoying the view have to move as it then becomes like 'The Birds' with gulls landing on the cars and trying to strip paint of them with thier nuclear waste fecking shit.

Vermin of the fecking sea, huge, arrogant pia's

LanguidLobster · 27/06/2018 13:30

KurriKurri how horrible :(

KurriKurri · 27/06/2018 13:38

It was awful, The cat used to lie asleep on their garage roof in the sun, and a seagull flew down and attacked it while it was sleeping, and the poor thing died from infection in the wounds Sad I always keep a close eye on my little dog when he is in the garden.

Roomba · 27/06/2018 13:43

They are bastards. I live a couple of miles from the sea and there are loads of them near here. One stole DS2's sandwich from his hand as he sat in his buggy once - he was gutted!

ToesInWater · 27/06/2018 13:59

We are in Oz. I'll take your gull and raise you a kookaburra 😂 I have seen them swoop in an outside restaurant and take a whole steak off a plate, snaffle a burger as someone was about to take a bite and take sausages off a bbq. Fuckers!

ChocolatePanda · 27/06/2018 14:03

ToesInWater then the goady fuckers go and sit in a tree laughing at you hey!

Thingywhatsit · 27/06/2018 14:05

Last week I got trapped in my car - a very vicious seagull wouldn't let me get out of it whilst on my own driveway! I can only think that we have upset it somehow - possibly my 4 yr olds current love of the trolls soundtrack hasn't got their approval?

We live near the coast and my kids know not to eat on the beach as they will have their food stolen!

WhatTheWatersShowedMe · 27/06/2018 14:43

My toddler daughter had all her pombears stolen by a peacock at an otter sanctuary we were visiting. I may have kicked the stupid flashy bastard.

crazycatgal · 27/06/2018 15:35

@WhatTheWatersShowedMe You kicked a peacock at an animal sanctuary? Ok then.

pigsDOfly · 27/06/2018 16:59

Yeah, kicking a peacock. Because that's the sort of thing you do at an animal sanctury.

Lovely behaviour to teach a toddler. Might have been better to have shown her the funny side of the situation WhatTheWatersShowedMe. But clearly that's not your way.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 27/06/2018 17:10

What I really don't get is this thing about them being protected; what's that all about anyway?

It's not as if there's any shortage of the things ...

dancinfeet · 27/06/2018 23:37

saw a little girl mugged for her fish and chips by one on Scarborough seafront the other year. Once the brute had succeeded in pulling it out of her hands, it was like a scene from The Birds as they all descended, squawking and squabbling over them. Poor kid was terrified.

tigercub50 · 27/06/2018 23:42

It’s a standing joke in our family that if a seagull is going to steal from one of us, it will always be me! I’ve had sandwiches, pasties, you name it. Bloody rats with wings!

Bibesia · 27/06/2018 23:42

I think, to be fair, the some species of seagulls (particularly herring gulls) are endangered and it's not realistically possible to protect some but not others.

Grimtimes · 27/06/2018 23:44

Hayle beach in Cornwall a seagull decided to fly down and pinch the last piece of pork strip from our bbq. It picked up in it's beak flew 20 yards, guzzled the whole strip then tried to fly off. The thing was the strip was still red hot. The bird got about 5 ft off the ground then fell to the floor and barfed it back up.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry until 20 minutes later it came back and still ate it once cool!!!
Cheeky bugger!

Dragonlight · 28/06/2018 00:04

toesinwater add magpies to that list too. My child nearly lost an eye to one once.

pigsDOfly · 28/06/2018 09:41

Crows can be a bit mean too. Not food related but some years ago one of my cats got attacked by four of the bullies, who swooped down at him every time he went through the cat flap into the garden, it went on for most of the day.

I assumed it was to protect young that they might have had in the vicinity, but the other cat didn't get the same treatment so not really sure about that. It's possible they were just having a bit of a laugh at his expense.

Bless him, he was so inoffensive too.

ILoveMyDressingGown · 28/06/2018 09:53

Apparently, crows can recognise faces and remember the people or other animals that have annoyed, upset or frightened them. They also hold a grudge against them and when they see that person or animal they warn each other and swoop, divebomb and attach them. It could be pigsDOfly that your cat has tried to catch a crow or attack its nest and now they're in revenge mode...

TerfsUp · 28/06/2018 10:05

I love this thread - the stories are a hoot.

pigsDOfly · 28/06/2018 10:09

That's interesting ILoveMyDressingGown. Maybe he had annoyed one of them. We had a small wooded area at the back of the house and they would have nested in the trees there I expect.

They were definitely lying in wait for him, I could see them sitting in one of the trees. Quite funny to think of one of them yelling 'there he is, get him' every time he left the house.

CourtneyLovely · 28/06/2018 10:47

Seagulls are graceless thugs. One stole a fresh doughnut out of DD's hand on Llandudno pier when she was small.

My favourite, or more accurately most terrifying, bird-related anecdote would be being surrounded by geese while eating sandwiches in a park, again when DD was a toddler. My friend, whose daughter was also a toddler, decided to get rid of them by throwing things at them. The things she decided to throw were mainly bits of her sandwich. She was amazed that this only seemed to encourage them.

Igneococcus · 28/06/2018 10:49

dp had a chocolate eclair snatched from his hand by a duck once.