to think this Whitby seagull was just watching and waiting for me to get my seafood before diving in

[cakeorwine]

Day out in Whitby today. Bought a seafood dish - mussels, prawns and cockles. Just walked away eating it and a gull just swept in and stole some.

Watched them later. They were just hanging round on the shack next to the store. Watching. Waiting.

Maybe this guy should have been around

Whitby man in eagle costume deters seagulls from stealing food - BBC News

One actually landed on my son's head to remove his iced bun from his hands when he was 2

Yes!

But they're sneaky buggers

Funniest thing I ever did witness was a very elderly pensioner sitting eating her chips. Seagulls descended and she got up waved her walking stick and pretended to shoot them whilst screaming 'clear off you fucking buggers'!

The ridiculous and hilarious part was they did!!!! All of um!!!

She's famous for it round these parts!

They're flying yobs!
I agree about the Blackpool yobs being harder, one of the bastards stole my fish! It was fresh out of the fryer too with lovely golden batter, and whoosh, gone! I'd not even had a bite of it.
They don't care, they just dive straight in. Bloody Lancaster bombers! Vrooooom, boosh, av it.
The ones on the east coast just tend to give you the beady eye until they get the opportunity before striking. All very gentrified.

Indeed
Those monkeys must smell the food. One appeared from nowhere, jumped on to a woman, put it hand right down into her tote bag and scarpered with sandwiches wrapped in foil. They were thug like near the ice cream stall.

I have a friend who works there. There's a nursing home near the rock and they keep brooms to knock the monkeys out if they try to come in open windows 😂

I've watched a pair of seagulls working together to open the lid of a wheelie bin to take out a pizza. One pulling the lid up with its beak and the other diving in and snatching the pizza. They're fiendishly clever.

They should make obstacle course tv programmes about them like they used to do with squirrels.

Apparently it's said you can protect your food by staring at them ... which is all very well, but while you're staring at one, what about its mates mounting a rearguard action?

And the TV people may well have considered a programme about their antics, @Fleabane - except they're perhaps worried they'd steal the equipment too

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49261385

Puzzledandpissedoff actually both herring and lesser black backed gulls are in massive decline, herring gulls are now red listed, so yes there is a shortage of them. Due to lack of food at sea and less landfill more have been concentrating in cities. Also just because its a pet peeve of mine j have to pedantically point out there's no such bird as a seagull.

One in St Andrews took my ice cream clean out of my hand. One in Edinburgh attempted the theft of my pear Frangipane tart but i was quick to defend it. Thieving bastards.

Sheringham seagulls are partial to (my chips 😡

Well you live and learn, Zwellers; I honestly didn't know that and am genuinely surprised, considering the number of them you see

Perhaps they're not the particular ones in decline though - I confess one is much the same as another to me, but I shall pay more attention to them in future

Watch Hitchcock's The Birds... it's a matter of time... led by the gulls and ravens no doubt

I was amazed at how the Whitby seagulls manage to scarf down scalding hot fish and chips without damaging their gullets.

We got some and it was much too hot to eat immediately, but the chap who left the shop just before us lost the lot to gulls in a second.

All red hot but swallowed up

I have a brilliant picture of ds1 as a toddler with an angry face shaking his fist at a seagull who had stole a chip haha.

Someone caught this on video in Wales, they are crafty buggers that's for sure!

DD accidentally licked a seagull over the summer.

It dived in to snatch her icecream as she was licking it and instead got a mouthful of gull.

She said it was salty.

The ones in Blackpool dive bomb like the Luftwaffe

I dunno like, what if the eagles get a taste for chips?

This is a very valid point. Around here it’s the red kites 😱

One bloke made the local paper wanting a roof put on the street because it mugged him coming out of McDonald's. I remember reading in that town

You cant eat in the street, they'll have you anywhere. I watched a gang of them taking turns at a blokes baguette he had poking out the back of his shopping bag.

This thread inspired me to head to YouTube, because I fancied a laugh. So @Fangisnotacoward I have literally just watched this 🤣.

Haha I used to live in Hastings and always laughed at the tourists having their food stolen

They're so smart - I really admire them !

I had a macaroni pie snatched out of my hand on the High St in Old Aberdeen a few years ago. Apparently it's one of the first things they warn new students about nowadays.

Agreed. The intelligence, the brazoness and the cooperation - I think they're my new spirit animal 🤭.

Bloody this!!

I'm Cornish, so not an unsuspecting tourist, quite savvy with them, blah blah, and I've been mugged by the shite hawks in St Ives. Bastards.

Also, I'm normally really careful and vigilant, but was fussing at DD 6 about seagulls in Exmouth this summer when one stole the contents of my sandwich, which was in my hand. I was left with 2 slices of bread. That'll teach me to think of the child first! 😂

If you stand and watch the buggers you can spot the ones going for it. They hover high behind people then drop and swoop in over the shoulder, wing to the face, beak full of food, and up. Extra points for smacking you in the face with their feet on exit. Clever, but vicious - those beaks are big when they're 2 inches from your eye!