The fucking seagulls have seized my garden and won't let me in it

[ShriekyBastards]

Stupid twatting seagulls have had babies that are wandering aimlessly around my garden and I get divebombed by the parents if I dare step foot out there. Two days of gorgeous sunshine and I can't let DS play out there because they wouldn't stop flying at our heads and I genuinely think they would attack us if I hadn't gone back inside ran away screaming. Can't even let the dog out for a wee and have to put him on lead, and drag DS down the road every time he needs to go. They woke DS (who usually sleeps 7-7) up at 4am this morning, so we're all knackered and grumpy but seriously. Why are they protected?! Stupid sky rats

Stay in doors and read The Birds by Daphne du Maurier or watch the Hitchcock film version. They might be gone by the time your finished.
Sorry not helpful!

You’re *

Don't do anything until they've left. Then put up spikes or something where they like to nest so they don't come back next year

Seagulls are bloody nasty bastards when it comes to their young

They are incredibly protective, but it’s to a fault.

No one is safe when seagull young is around

I don’t think you can do anything until the babies learn to fly and the parents take them away

I’ve only realised I’ve never seen seagull babies

Very cute!

Side note, whenever anyone mentions seagulls I always remember this video

m.youtube.com/watch?v=pQVynVqk2nA

I'm afraid you'll just have to wait it out unless you do what a pp said and scoop them to another garden - only if you can source a full suit of armour for the job though! OP they got there because they were too stupid to realise they couldn't fly when they left there nest. However everyone saying they are flying rats are BU. Everyone knows that's pigeons. Seagulls are simply evolved pterodactyls

Baby herring gulls might be cute, but adolescent seagulls aren’t. They are just speckly, louder versions of the adults. With the added bonus of insane, shouty, dive bombing parents nearby.

Can you corral the babies anywhere so they aren't wandering around loose? Then the parents should be able to see that you're not going to go near/harm them. You have my sympathies, OP, we've had baby seagulls fall off our roof the last two years. The babies are fine, it's the parents!

SkylineTurnstiles it was in Barcelona so maybe European ones are extra tough. We watched the entire pigeon meal, couldn't look away 😲

they are most annoying.
they nest on a roof near me and constantly shout HERE HERE HERE HAHAHAHA HERE HERE HAHAHA
luckily they only dive bomb here on bin collection day. or when you have food in your hands.
umbrellas help (but you also need soapy water on hand to wash off their missiles)

Other buildings nearby have fake eagles flying from a string on a tall pole. No idea if it actually works but not ideal to have it in a garden anyway

I think it may well do. There's a garden centre really near the coast round my way and they have one. It's on a sort of bendy pole, then a line, and in the breeze it makes a very convincing swooping motion.
Their car park is astonishingly free of seagull shit and I've never seen one lurking about there.

My ex got attacked by one when he went to repair a guttering problem at the school he used to work for, which was across the road from the beach.

Sadly, it didn't send him plummeting to his death, which would have saved me a very costly divorce.

wait til they poo on your washing that is really hard to wash off

Wait till they poo on your windscreen when you're driving along. I swear they shit a couple of litres, when it happened to me it was like someone had put a white blanket over the windscreen, it was terrifying.

I'd just gone under a bridge on a dual carriageway when it happened, I honestly thought vandals had tipped a can of white emulsion onto the car.

They can aim, too. One shat through the open sun roof of DP's car once. Luckily, it went all over his ex. It still makes him laugh nearly 20 years later, so they're not entirely useless.

Why the heck are they protected? They're hardly bloody scarce!

Because some species of gull are scarce, and if they were no longer protected people would attack gulls indiscriminately putting the scarce species in major danger of extinction.

I don't think there is much you can do this year, but for next year I would opt for both putting netting out and the fake eagles option. Also look into recordings of birds of prey.

I swear when I took the towel off they looked embarrased.

Love the thought of embarrassed seagulls

Fuck that
Hard hat on, big coat and gloves, scoop the little mini flying rats up, shove them over the the nearest wall out the garden, run the fuck away and hope their parent flying rats fuck off to find them.

Shriekybastards it was about six weeks before they managed to fly over the wall I think. Dad put some anti-bird stuff on the garage roof once nesting season was over to stop them coming back, and thus far it's done the trick!

and they are brutal parents.
when the babies are ready to leave the nest the just get pushed off the roof.

Buy yourself a Kestrel as a pet, it will eat the baby seagulls. Jobs a good un.

The chicks will fledge in the next couple of weeks and then you will have your garden back. Until then, steer clear.

Once they have gone, get some roof spikes and some large plastic owls on your roofline and in any trees you have in your garden.

(For a coastal dweller who totally gets it. Had a teenage seagull in my living room a couple of years ago when I was on a long video conference call and had just got a puppy. That was interesting...).

I once had to arrange for engineers to do some work on a rooftop near the sea. They kept refusing to work because of the feathery bastards dive bombing them. We weren't able to justify the cost of a bird of prey to the client so I hired a loudspeaker that made the noises of random birds of prey and had one of the engineers run round the roof letting it go off. Problem solved!

Do you all live by the seaside or a landfill? We never get seagulls and I didn't realise they were such an issue.

I live by the sea. It's all herring gulls round here and they are massive. Wing span is about two feet and long razor sharp beaks. By the time you see the young ones on the ground they are about the same size as the adults.

One flew straight into my living room once and I nearly had a heart attack.

The replies here are very different from the recent dumping of sea monkey's thread! 🤣

Hate bastard seagulls - I feel for you OP

I feel your pain OP. I can’t stand them.
A few years ago we had two really aggressive ones on our roof. They terrorised my poor cat. We couldn’t go in the garden and never dared to have a bbq, because they just constantly dive bombed.

Hate the stupid things. And I don’t think they’re cute either, not even the babies.

@Nonotthisagain

The replies here are very different from the recent dumping of sea monkey's thread! 🤣

Hate bastard seagulls - I feel for you OP

I wouldn't hurt them (and not just because I am scared to get close ) but they are still terrifying