After the extreme cold of the last two winters, the recent mild conditions have taken us by surprise. (Tomorrow’s forecast, for instance, is for a virtually tropical thirteen degrees Celsius!)
We’re not the only ones to be confused though. The local seagulls, who never show their beaks around here till the first hard frosts arrive, turned up around mid-November, and have looked–and most likely felt–somewhat out of place ever since.
Forget what those wiseguys on BBC Springwatch are always saying about not giving seagulls, or any other birds, bread, because it has no nutritional value for them: most birds, and seagulls especially, will ignore the ‘decent’ food (such as small bits of fruit) and go straight for the Warburton’s crusts–although not if I get them first!
Jackdaws, magpies, crows, and even pigeons will hunt around for things to eat; I know, because I’ve watched them often enough. Urban gulls, however, make zero effort. They simply sit on a nearby roof till someone chucks something out, and only then will they make a move. If you’re being charitable you could say they are sensibly conserving energy, but I prefer to think of them by the affectionate Aussie slang name of ‘bludgers’. (FYI, I have no connection with Australia and have never been there, but I did watch the Aussie soap ‘Home and Away’ a few times many years ago.)
A good wheeze is to wait till there are a couple of dozen gulls lined up on the roof opposite and then, with no intention of throwing out even a single morsel, just open the window a tiny bit. Those gulls will be down on your front lawn before you can so much as think ‘greedy goblins’. Well, that’ll teach ‘em not to be so keen, won’t it?
Sometimes I like to catch the eye of the alpha male (if gulls have such things) or Number One Beak, and mouth the words ‘Actually, I prefer crows!’ You don’t half get some filthy looks back, I can tell you. Or maybe I’m just anthropomorphising again.
If I’m feeling bold, though, I might mention the Scottish isle of St Kilda. The islanders (Kilda was evacuated in 1930) used to live on a diet of mostly seabirds and seabirds’ eggs, so I like to remind the gulls of that. I do this by standing at the window and announcing that all those gulls flying around those stale bits of the downstairs neighbours’ discarded Mighty White ‘look like a St Kilda breakfast’. Shana says I’m a bit mean, but I’m only joshing really. Just to be on the safe side though, I think I’ll stay this side of the double glazed windows while those birds are about. Oh, and if you think it’s going a bit far, wearing a hard hat indoors, well, you can’t be too careful, can you?
