Annual Gull Season Dramas

The annual gull season dramas are thankfully almost over with the chicks finally stretching their wings and attempting to  leave their rooftop roosts and learn the ways of the gull.

Every year we are surrounded by pairs of herring gulls on our roof, next doors roof and the nearby church roof. Every year we have the drama of popping them back on the roof when the chicks fall off, as well as keeping the local kids from throwing stuff at them and being woken up in the early hours with shrieking and pecking on the roof above our heads.  We even had one chick that had fallen off the roof and into our garden wander into the house a few years ago and have a right old look around. 

Phil has been singled out, despite his constant rescue missions, by the gulls themselves just because of the gull wrangling involved in catching them and popping them back to safety on the roof.  If I am in the house I know when Phil has returned from surfing merely because the gulls start the 'bad man has returned alert call'. 

I have helped out a bit more this year in catching them so now I am also clucked and swooped at.  I wish we could tell them we meant no harm and were merely helping them out.  Despite this, they have never actually attacked us which makes me wonder whether the horror stories you read of gull attacks are the usual press frenzy.  The worst they have done is regurgitate or poo on Phil, which is not too pleasant but also far from being physically attacked.

When it comes down to it, it's all part of living on the Cornish coast but we do breathe a bit of a sigh of relief when it is all over for another year.  I do also enjoy seeing the babies finally stretching their wings and wonder at what it must be like for those babies to fly for the first time out over the great ocean.