Spouse and I have just been to visit friends in Osgodby, just south of Scarborough and less than a quarter of a mile inland. We are 4miles south of them and 200yards inland . Spouse sat in the garden with P and I was indoors with D, and as we drove off home my beloved remarked,
- not that they had a gorgeous garden
- not that they had a huge garden room with all mod cons including TV
- not that everywhere was so clean and tidy,which it was
BUT that one couldn't hear a single seagull.
Here in Filey Old Town all the neighbours have started speaking to one another in a new and confidential way, a gentle probing sort of a way, a testing the waters sort of way. WE all seem to want to know what we think about the plague (my word ) of Herring Gulls that this year have ingratiated themselves on our roofs, or dormer windows, our chimneys and even our flower beds. The cacophony is unbearable. We cannot ring our Community Police Officer as we do when few neighbours are brawling and screaming outside our dwellings when high on skunk. These neighbours have been as quiet as mice this year, or else have grown up . No,not only are the gulls high on something over our heads, but are divebombing our cars, our lines of clean laundry and our roofs. C and I and all our immediate neighbours would like a CULL .
The reason we are probing and testing in our inter locutions is because we have to be very careful. We have friends in Filey who think the Gulls are lovely, are wonderful parents(which they are) and are fascinating to watch all day (if they are so inclined). Not in my backyard. I would be very happy if they went back to where they have come from, Bempton or Filey Cliffs.
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| Side of Union Street, Filey |
This last picture was literally the last. One of them strayed into the road , as when I passed their flower bed 10 mins later , there was grey roadkill 2 yards away.
As a bird lover, and one who lives about as far from the coast as is possible in the UK, I have to say I love the sound of gulls.
ReplyDeleteFor me it evokes childhood holidays on the beaches of South Wales and later ones in my teens on the South Coast.
My eldest brother however, lives in West Sussex and has had exactly the same problem as you are experiencing for many years.
The reason appears to be that some few people in the community feed the perishers, and they come back again and again and bring their children and grandchildren (the gulls I mean, not the people feeding them).
It might be worth someone in your area contacting someone in the Sussex area to discover whether they have a solution to offer.
Sometimes nature doesn't provide its own solutions.
Hi,Ray, I love birds, and have enjoyed the sound of the swifts on the telephone wire literally 2 yds from my bed.The swifts fledged 6weeks ago and did not make such a raucous noise. I do think the way the Herring Gulls care for their young could put some humans to shame.I still cant bear the noise and mess. Years ago gulls eggs were collected and sold for food. Now its illegal to cull them less than 3 miles inland or so I have been told by irate filonians.
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