Seagull rescue | Plymouth

SEAGULL RESCUE: PART ONE – ARRIVAL  Pictures and Post by Trudi in Plymouth

So, what Is it about these birds I love so much? Is it because they are handsome, intelligent and cheeky? Or is because they are so often despised by people and treated badly for only trying to survive like the rest of us?  There is no one aspect of these creatures that I fell for, it’s the whole package. I love all the gull family but it is the Herring Gull I find the most captivating.  How did this all start for me? Well it started about six years ago at work…let me begin.

I work in a Government office on the first floor. The first floor is actually at roof level and surrounds the courtyard in the middle. Six years ago we saw the first herring gull and his/her partner make a nest by the chimneys/flues and raise a little family of 3 chicks (so cute). They were actually at the furthest point of the roof so we couldn’t see all that well. After rearing their brood successfully they all flew away in September and we thought that was the last we would see of them.

One year later and the nesters came back to their old spot, but this time another two pairs of Herring Gulls also settled down and produced chicks. From then on, year on year we have had more and more gulls nesting on our roof. This year there must have been at least 30 – 35 nesting pairs (maybe more but we can’t see the other side of the roof). There were some gulls who weren’t actually nesting as they were too young but I think they were on the look out for a prospective mate as there was a lot of “love stuff” going on up there! It’s a bit like a singles club for them I suppose.

This year we probably had about 60+ chicks raised. Only two didn’t make it, and one of those was no longer a chick but a baby as big as his parents. He’d made a bad landing and broke his wing. We had to call the RSPCA and they took him away. I think they automatically put them to sleep as gulls with broken wings rarely heal and don’t respond well to captivity.

Anyway, over these 6 years myself and my friend have been lucky enough to observe these wonderful birds closely. One couple (we called them Jack & Vera) had their chicks right by our window so we saw the whole thing from the “love stuff” to the actually mating and eventually the egg production line. Vera had two chicks and she and Jack were attentive parents. Their babies (Tyrone & Molly) grew up to be healthy youngsters and have flown off to do what gulls do.

Unfortunately not everyone in our building likes these feathered visitors and at every Health & Safety meeting there would be the usual moans and complaints about the gulls making a mess and frightening staff. Yes, gulls do make a mess. All animals do. I pointed out to these people that we are the only species who wear knickers and have lavatories to deal with our own grot, but animals and birds don’t. Most of what comes out of a gulls backside is what we have thrown on the floor after a drunken night out. What goes in has to come out. Yes, the window cleaners have to work that extra hard to remove the odd splatter on the windows but there is nothing we can do about the poop landing on cars in the car park. If cars were parked under trees in London then the pigeons would do the same. People should think themselves lucky as in Nairobi the massive Malibu Storks nest in the trees and trust me when they let go your car really does get covered! As for frightening people, that is complete rubbish as the gulls don’t feed on our site, they see no threat to their babies from people eating in the courtyard or walking to their cars, and therefore have no need to scare anyone or attack. There has been NO attacks in all the years these birds have been nesting. An adult gull will never fly into the courtyard as they find it difficult to fly back out again. They are big birds and there is not enough space for them to get enough lift to reach the roof, but the babies who have new wings to control, can end up down there and myself and my friend go down and bring them back up (I’ll speak more about this another time).

Anyway, two years ago the building owners put up a gull scarer. A pole with an inflatable kite in the shape of a bird of prey. It went up in the courtyard, installed by the maintenance guy with the loudest mouth in the history of human foghorns. The gulls just took to the air and spent an hour screeching loudly and flying around in a state of agitation. The babies were still young and were left on the roof unprotected. Most of them were crying for their parents, obviously frightened by what was going on. After Foghorn had put the pole up, he tried in vain to fly the kite. It dropped out of the air like a lead weight and dived  into the bushes. Foghorn gave up and went in. Now even I know that putting something in a courtyard surrounded by buildings is not the best place to put up a kite relying on at least a hard breeze to get airborne. The courtyard was sheltered and no breezes get down there. The kite just ended up tangled and broken. After an hour the gulls resettled and just got on with life. Gulls 1 – Kite 0.

In 2013 however, the threat to our gullys (as we call them) suddenly got worse… To be continued:-

Here are pics taken by Trudi:

Jack and Vera before parenthood… then making love and then the beautiful Tyrone and Molly!