Seagulls

[Desperatetime]

They appear to be in the news alot lately giving them a bad press are they really as bad as they are made out to be I've been to the seaside but ever witnessed any of what the press says.

https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/llandudno-tourists-locals-warned-not-5733398

Love pigeons, love gulls, love nature.

Ha, we call them Beach Turkeys!

I live in a coastal town. I’ve seen seagulls circle & swoop down on people many times - I can’t exactly blame them though - the amount of people who throw chips at them (usually tourists!) means they know how to get an easy meal.
The shrieking sound they make is horrible too, plus all the seagull poo. Yeh - I don’t like them.

Go to Anglesey on your holidays, there don't seem to be any there. (I think they may all have moved to Aberystwyth though, from the amount of poo.)

Horrid birds.

Luckily only have to deal with them up close and personal in winter unless I go to the coast.

In the city I live in the city council has produced an actual guide named Living with Urban Gulls - a Survivors Guide.

Friend lost a donut right out of his mouth during the first bite. Cheeky hilarious greedy feathered bastards! I did laugh, he was less amused 🤣

I was brought up in the midlands and saw black headed gulls. Then went to the coast and the Black Backed Gulls were massive, felt like they filled the streets with their wings.

Black Backed Gulls are definitely predators, saw one eating a chick/egg of another bird (possibly guillemot) on a seal cruise and watched a baby guillemot dodge underwater to avoid being lunch for another.

I'm now about 10 miles inland and some idiots on the nearby estate are feeding the beasts and they're so noisy - they seem to especially like yelling into chimney pots!

When I was a kid I had a row with my brother on holiday.

So I sneaked a couple of chips into his hood and watched him get dive-bombed

46 years later and he still brings it up 😂😂

People saying we shouldn't eat outside or just leave them alone- when my DS was 2 we went to a play ground about a mile from the coast. No food with us at all.

A seagull walked up to my son and attempted to eat his leg. Actually put it's beak around his shin and bit it. He screamed and I ran at the seagull to scare it off. It came back again. DS very distressed.

They're horrible.

One tried to go for my doughnut while I was protecting DS from them. It didn't get it (no one gets my doughnut) but it had a good go and flew off with chocolate sauce around its mouth.

One of the cafe owners told me that the same day one had flown off with someone's gammon steak.

This is the first year I've seen them go for stuff other than fish and chips. Maybe it's because we went to the South Coast instead of Wales for a change. Maybe Welsh seagulls are politer 🤣

Rats with wings.

I can't even have lunch in my own garden as the feckers swoop in and grab my sandwich. They also squawk on my roof from about 4am onwards.

They are enormous grabby bastards.

Horrid “rats with wings” as they’re called on Finding Nemo. One slammed into me and flew off with my chips, no word of a lie. I was too stunned to react in time, threw a spade at it but it was too late. I was really looking forward to my lunch too!

I saw one kill a pigeon once. It was behind some of those kind of metal crowd control barrier things that are all joined together. A guy jumped over them and chased it away but it waited on a rooftop and flew back down and continued attacking the pigeon until it was dead. I mean I don't have much time for pigeons to be honest but it was horrific. Some of them are massive, I wouldn't mess with one that's for sure.

The gulls in my town are very well behaved. We don’t have a lot of people feeding them and we’re close to an area where there’s a lot of natural food sources, so we’re all co-existing happily.

The situation 10 miles down the road is completely different however. Lots of unsuspecting tourists & people deliberately feeding them has resulted in seriously aggressive gulls. I’ve noticed that once the tourists go home though, the gulls calm down a bit. I think it’s seeing an almost constant opportunity to nick food during the summer months that sends them a bit crazy!

Total flying bastards, but you have to admire their ingenuity. There’s a good video online of one who constantly steals sandwiches and packs of Doritos from its local Tesco.

There a video on social media of one in my local town eating a pigeon, I live by the coast. They are huge and noisy. They wake me up if I sleep with the window open.
I've never been attacked by one here but I am careful with food etc.
I did get attacked and pecked on the head (caused a wound and bleeding) in St Ives , I was eating a pasty and can only assume I was essentially being mugged.

Can you elaborate a little on the Hawker?!

I absolutely love them!

I'm near the coast, and my flat is at the top in an old house. All the chimney pots have nests and I'm forever sticking my head out the skylight of my bedroom during the early Summer weeks to see if I can spot a scraggly grey wrinkly baby bird. They're coming along fabulously now and waddling around, soon they'll be flying and stealing food from everyone in the city centre.

I love their expressions.

About 3 weeks ago, one of the babies fell off my roof and landed in the backyard. He didn't make it, i was on my way to an emergency vets with him in a box, and he passed away en-route... Very sad. Poor little thing.

Yep pain in the arse. One once grabbed my sandwich straight out of my hand. Which was quite funny to be fair.

Also one of the many reasons I won’t swim in the sea as seagull shit is no laughing matter 😂

Gulls are scared of hawks. You get a trained hawker to come round at strategic times and fly their birds in your garden. If the gulls feel unsafe, they won't nest on your house. Fingers crossed it works. They have learned to live around the roof spikes that are up there.

This. Everyday all day.
Mind you I had an aversion to them for a long time after I was sat in the school yard and one did a huge shite on the comic I was reading. It was my mate’s too.

But how do you get rid of the hawks? Do you need an Eagle? Then what?