My poor seagulls

Sorry white wave, you can't expect everyone to love seagulls.Or pigeons, or urban foxes.Urban foxes have already attacked babies in the houses.Nobody should really be feeding them, either in the country or in the towns.They are not pets.
Up to you, if you feed pigeons though they make a disgusting mess.

I am not an animal killer whitewave I just think that seagulls are vermin. They carry disease and unlike your cutsie image of them they DO attack children carrying food causing actual harm as I witnessed on Friday. I don't know where you live but here at the seaside they are becomming so overpopulated it is almost dangerous to allow children to carry an icecream for fear of attack. They are no longer sea birds they are flying rats !

Oh I can give those animal killers something else to get their teeth into. I have a flock of about a dozen pigeons 5 of which are completely white which I feed every morning at 7am and afternoon at 3pm. My sister also feeds the resident foxes every evening. They sit on the grass across the road waiting same time every night. She also has one pigeon that spends its time in her garden and she feeds that.

I also have a resident mouse family that lives in the greenhouse. Dear little brown jackets they wear, they get their share of bird seed.

Blimey this thread has gone from my concern about my resident seagulls - who I may add are very well mannered to kill all seagulls, pigeons and foxes!!!! Well not rreally but you get my drift.

Seagulls , like pigeons, have become an increasing pest.As they are not on any endangered list they need to be dealt with.Same with urban foxes.We have to realise that when animals/ birds lose their fear of humans they will also then attack, not just steal food.

I have heard situations where people are too frightened to go out into their own gardens for fear of being dive bombed by one of these nasty creatures. I agree Indinana they have forgot how to fish and seem to survive by emptying bins in our local park and attacking small children carrying food and ice creams. We have a beautiful park right beside us where children used to go and feed the ducks. Not any more though as the lake is full of massive seagulls. The mess they cause is horrible too meaning its barely possible to navigate the lake perimeter it is so covered in seagull poop.

In parts of France apparently it has got so bad the authorities are destroying the eggs in nests in order to cull the population.

I'm with you gillybob, living in a coastal region like you. They are vermin - rats with wings is what I always call them too. I have seen many an incident like the one you describe. They are no longer the beautiful sea birds of old, surviving by diving for fish and following the trawlers. They have moved more and more inland, scavenging and stealing from small children.
The mess they make when scavenging in bins is a huge problem - there are lots of stone bins with bin liners securely anchored around the rim on our local university campus and I've seen seagulls expertly pulling the bin liners until they're inside out with the contents tipped all over the ground for them to rake through. And they have become vicious bullies in their increasingly bold quest for food in urban areas. I had one fly at me from behind - I was nearly knocked flat as it hit me hard on the back of my head. I wasn't holding any food at the time, but someone in front of me was and I was in the gull's way.

Bloody seagulls. I hate them !

Living in a seaside town we are plagued with these rats with wings. I witnessed a small child having a cake taken right from his hand on Friday afternoon, no doubt resulting in a trip to A&E and most definitely a tetanus jab. The little boy was only about 3 and the seagull flying vermin didn't half peck him.

Nest hasn't been touched as it on our chimney. More practice needed I think unless one of the parents are sterile?

They are handsome birds and I simply don't get the pest business. Seagulls are as entitled to live on this earth as we are, the fact that our way of living has clashed with their life style is simply hard cheese and we should look for a way to accomodate wild life not ways of destroying it. We do get above ourselves at times we are only another species.

Most people consider seagulls to be pests with many towns looking for ways to decrease their population! Perhaps the eggs of the pair you are watching having been switched or oiled.

Awww poor things. I suppose it's a learning process. Next year they'll be more experienced.

I wonder if they are young, inexperienced birds. If so they will take some time to realise that something is wrong. They will give up eventually. On average it takes about 26 days for herring gull eggs to hatch, so if they've been brooding eggs since May, nothing is going to happen.