To want to kill the birds

[Notattheseaside]

I know I will probably get some hate for this but here goes.

For the second year in a row seagulls have nested on my neighbours roof, last year we had a miserable 4 weeks or so as one of the babies fell of the roof and was in our garden, I couldn't let the dog out as the seagulls kept swooping for her, pooed all over her several times and started trying to attack her (dog was not bothered with the baby gull) To hang out washing I had to take a sweeping brush to protect myself, same with getting in the car as anyone even walking past our house was attacked by the gulls.

This year 3 babies have been born, I'm trying to sunbathe in the garden and it literally sounds like I am at the seaside (nowhere near) there is probably well over 30 gulls on near by roofs and they spend their day circling our garden (we don't feed them). One of the babies are now in the neighbours garden so the gulls are starting the swooping thing again.

We are miserable, we can't have a BBQ as they start diving down, the wee ones are too scared to go out to play because they get swooped, can't let the dog out in the garden and it's far too hot to walk her (and leaving the house is getting risky with the swooping unless we run straight to the car)

The council and pest control can't or won't help and say they are protected so can't be touched, neighbour will deal with the nest once the chics leave.

What to do in the meantime? Can't face dealing with this until August. Can they be killed? Is that to terrible to even consider it?

Of course they can't be killed. The word 'Protected' makes that perfectly clear.

I feel your pain. Seagulls can be vicious- I can imagine what they are like when protecting their young! I suspect there isn't anything you can do for this year, but hopefully next year your neighbours can be pro- active in either preventing the best from being built or destroying it before any eggs are laid

I feel for you, OP and this would do my head in (I was very bird-phobic, much better following CBT, but seagulls still freak me out.)

You clearly can't do anything about it now they're here, but you can get ultrasonic seagull repelling devices to stop them coming back next year. My ex used to be in charge of building maintenance at a school very near the coast, and he bought several to stop the buggers from nesting on the roofs.

I am just so miserable, the dog is miserable because she is scared of them and has been attacked and the kids are miserable because they get swooped too and won't go out at all now. I have to take a sweeping brush any time I'm going out in the car because the minute they see any movement they are swooping.

Thank you @LakieLady I will have a look and buy some stuff

Can you get one of those plastic birds on the roof, would that deter them? And a strong water pistol!

They are protected as their numbers are rapidly declining. They will move on soon

pellet gun ? 🤷‍♀️

@Harridance well reminded, I did go and buy strong water pistols last year, forgot about that will hunt them out, we had to try that to let the kids play and was ready to spray if they tried to hurt the kids

I love birds but wouldn’t want a seagull nest in my garden. Unfortunately there’s kronor you can do this year but next year you’re neighbour will have to try and discourage them building their next.

Nothing! Not kronor 🤔

@Flaunch I love birds too and wouldn't mind these so much if they weren't aggressive but they are actually out of control, other neighbour tried a BBQ yesterday and the whole time there were 16 adult gulls circling her garden and swooping down. Now one of the babies is down the aggression will up considerably

It won’t help this year- but you can prevent them from returning next year. We had pigeons tried to nest on our balcony at work. We put up bird spikes and and meshed off areas they wanted to nest in. They don’t come by as much now. Luckily we also have a falcon type type bird who likes to swoop in occasionally. We find partial pigeons now and again. You can get fake birds they’re scared of. In my last house we also had swallows who liked to nest directly above the mail box. Poop all over it. Painted silicone on the bit of wall after they’d moved out. Made their nest round the corner the following year!

Herring gulls are red listed due to population decline and therefore no, you absolutely cannot kill them. The young will be fledging soon so once they have gone you can work on bird proofing the area- it's illegal to disturb any active nests.

A news story/or a FB group (can't remember which) from Llandudno described how they fixed an almost life size seagull model/statue up on their roof to prevent them nesting and it worked.

Too late this year but an idea for next perhaps?

They're just trying to live and protect their babies. We've taken over everywhere. It's not like they have loads of choice of where to live, don't you think they'd rather be somewhere safer where they don't have to do this stuff to protect their children?

No you can't kill animals because you want to be able to bbq. Yes it's a pain in the arse and I feel for you but this human mentality of "those animals are annoying me, can't I just kill them?!" Is really actually vile.

@Sweatinglikeabitch Not sure if you read my full post but it's not so I can BBQ, my children are being swooped at so do I have a right to protect my babies? We can't walk put our front or back door without getting attacked, so it's much more than you made out

I'd buy the anti-gull devices for next year and fill your water pistols in the mean time. The water pistols work if you buy big ones and go for it. My parents & a neighbour have had nasty bastard gulls flying around their properties in Portugal. They nest on our neighbours roof and have followed him down the street trying to attack him and knock him off his bike before! My dad blasts them mercilessly with a rather big, specially bought water gun if they go too near for comfort. They are a lot less keen to sit on our roof or strafe/low swoop our terrace now.

About two years ago, I saw some seagulls were attempting to build a nest on my roof next to the chimney stack, so I scared them off.

Drilled screws through a plank of wood and placed it with pointy side up where they wanted to nest. Worked a treat as they gave up and went elsewhere!

You could deter seagulls with a bird scarer on a pole like these. There's bird scarer tape in the image, but I've no idea how effective they are.

We have had a problem with gulls and DH designed a bird scarer. Old cardboard tube and a yazoo? blower that squeals. Sound amplified down tube and scares the gulls away. It's so effective that it brings in gulls from a mile around... Ah well, back to the drawing board. At least it stops them dancing and nesting on our flat roof.

No suggestions, but yet another reason to love our red kites!

Please don’t use mesh. The birds feet entangle in it and they die a slow and horrible death.
im very sad to hear you stopped swallows nesting n your house. Swifts, swallows and house martins are all in decline through loss of breading habitat and that includes houses where the eaves and fascia’s create a good place to build their nest. They do no harm to your home. And clearing up a bit of pop or mocking your mail box is a small thing to do to help them survive as a population.

seagulls can be noisy and agressive, along with a few other large birds so can understand trying to discourage them. Their populations are reasonably healthy if one of common gull species. Swallows, and related swifts, martins etc and for that matter sparrows who also need space on our houses, do not create any nuisance apart from a few short weeks of a bit of poop which can be cleaned up once they’ve left.
please reconsider your stance and allow them to nest . It is rare they find such suitable places these days

Oh god, you’ve just made think there’s a birds nest on our roof or in close proximity. I have noticed ridiculously loud bird noises during the night/morning (we also live nowhere near the seaside or anywhere birds would prefer to nest). These noises also weren’t apparent last year so maybe it’s a recent nest.

We live in a tall building so luckily no swooping action on street level - that’s pretty scary.

@premiumwine Yeah none of us have slept properly for weeks as the birds are just constantly squawking, gets worse around 3am and then that is for the day so we are all pretty exhausted too, we need the windows open for the heat but even if we shut them it's still loud enough to wake the whole house up

Snap. They made my life a misery last year nesting in a box gutter on my terraced house. I fitted a double row of hedgehog in the gutter, had the double set of ridge tiles reinforced and steel wires set up across to prevent nesting. This works but they've moved further up so still an issue. Will be adding the ultrasonic devices.

@Notattheseaside You need a gazebo up even if it's just tarpaulins as a makeshift.

I live in South Cornwall half a mile from the coast so it's an issue here. The fledglings are walking along the ridge tiles so I'm terrified one will fall into our gardens. There is always one on duty on a higher chimney and they follow you as you leave the house. I've cut some of the 12' tall bamboos and we've got them in pots. If you look at the one outside my back gate we've seen the gull descend there. They defecate as they fly and it's hard enough getting it off cars but a neighbour described it as setting like cement on clothing. The neighbour's dog was messed on as she came out of the back door.