To think ds wasn’t doing anything wrong?

[TrenchArse]

At the zoo and eating a picnic in the play area. Seagulls are an absolute nightmare at the zoo for swooping your food, especially in this playground as it’s right by the ice cream hut. Eating and chatting and every so often a seagull or a peacock gets a bit too close so my 6yo was standing up, taking a couple of steps towards it, clapping at it and sitting back down and carrying on eating.

Woman walks past and says loudly to her toddler “remember how nasty it is to chase birds. Only horrible children chase birds and if you see anyone do it you must tell me so I can tell the zookeeper, alright?” whole pointedly glancing at ds. This causes both myself and my sister to crack up laughing because it was so ridiculous how passive aggressive she was being. That was probably a bit mean on our part, to be fair.

But was ds doing anything wrong in shooing the birds away? He wasn’t chasing them or trying to catch them, he was literally just taking a couple of steps towards them and clapping to shoo them away from our picnic.

She was being ridiculous imo

I’d have clapped hands and told her to “shoo”.

@Finfintytint

I’d have clapped hands and told her to “shoo”.

This

I’d have reacted exactly the same as you did. How ridiculous!

@Finfintytint

I’d have clapped hands and told her to “shoo”.

😂😂😂 The only right response is this.

Shooing a bird away from your food is fine. Although seagulls can get very aggressive so be careful.

I hate people who let their kids just run into say a bunch of ducks sitting minding their own business at the park but what you describe is different. I’d love to see a zookeepers face if she actually reported it!

Zoo keeper would probably think shes a bit odd

Toddler chases bird. Bird does that thing birds do aka flies away. Nobody is hurt or traumatised. People who talk aggressively through their children are dicks. I agree with pp clap your hands at her.

Seagulls can look after themselves imo.

Yep there’s a massive difference between shooing birds away from you/ your food and running deliberately in to them when they are just minding their own business. Don’t give it another thought.

Who died & made her the bird lady from Mary Poppins? She'll be the first to scream bloody murder when a seagull steals her child's Greggs pasty hand baked spelt & buckwheat artisanal roll with halloumi & saffron aioli.

Bloody hell. It's a scavenger (bird) approaching a hunting animal that is eating it's food. It's entirely natural behaviour to posture/ intimidate away the scavenger until you're done with it. Some people are weird.

Seagulls can definitely look after themselves, my 7 year old son tried to shoo away some at the beach as they kept coming over for food And they all started chasing after him 🤦🏻

(definitely shoo away the passive aggressive odd bod next time)

I hate it when people let their DC run at a flock of birds for no reason but clapping a seagull away from your picnic is fine.

I usually hate it when people let their kids chase birds who are just minding their business but YANBU here.
He wasn't doing them any harm to them and as me and my son have both been mugged by seagulls on separate occasions, I don't blame you!

Another one who hates to see children running at birds that are minding their own business but of course your ds was right to shoo the gulls away from your picnic.

Gulls are aggressive and fearless when it comes to stealing from people's hands and can more than hold their own.

Stupid passive aggressive woman sounds ridiculous.

She sounds like a twat OP

Well if your kid wasn't chasing the birds, she wasn't talking about him was she?

Shame your DS didn’t scare off that old buzzard as well…..

If it was exactly as you describe then YANBU

I would've burst out laughing too. Ridiculous woman.

Gulls are thugs. Chasing them away from your food is essential if you plan on eating.

Chances are the kid had been repeatedly chasing a bunch of pigeons or ducks all over the place, and had been read the riot act. So maybe the parent was simply reinforcing to their dc what they'd already been told not to do.

She'd love me. We have our own free roaming peacocks and I've been known to squirt one particularly persistent one with a water pistol

(only when we are trying to have a meal in the garden in summer and he's decided it should be his meal)