My poor seagulls

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 !

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.

That dear little mouse family you're encouraging will multiply very quickly - all looking for somewhere to live.

I wonder if you will like them quite as much when they're looking for some warmth in the winter and move into your house?

No they have been around for quite a few years now - the mice I mean. I have a terrier so no mice in the house!

I have no mess from the pigeons? They fly down, eat, argue then fly off again until tea or breaskfast. It is the sparrows who make the most mess they have their own feeder and are incredibly choosy, throwing the seed they don't want all around! This gets swept up and recycled for the mice who are sweetly gratful.

The starlings make the most noise and rather remind me of the grans as they bicker.
We also accomodate a goodly number of frogs but I don't feed the!m merely rescue them from the resident terrier!

The foxes simply disappear to live their life after their dinner.

My sister also feeds a stray cat who seems to live quite happily alongside the foxes.

Daily feeding for foxes is not even good for the foxes. They get used to regular meals that appear before them without any hunting, so they rely on them, and the young ones never learn from their parents how to find their own food. Come the autumn they move off to find their own territory and have to start from scratch. Then they become hungry and aggressive trying to get their "rights" from another human.

An occasional windfall that fell "accidentally" from a human's hand is OK, and if you know from their traces that foxes frequent your garden that gives you a chance to see them, but regular feeding is not a good idea, from anyone's point of view. They are not pets dependent of man's bounty for their daily bread.

Well I do know that she has been feeding them for about ,5 years now . Generally it is just one or two adults and in season the cubs turn up then as the year advances they disappear leaving just one or two again.

Disliking and discouraging vermin does not make me an animal killer, whitewave. Most people would not be happy with an infestation of rats or mice in their house. Or pigeons living on and damaging the fabric of their house. Feeding seagulls is almost certainly what made them lose their fear of humans in the first place - and anyway, they don't really need our help; they are pretty adept at stealing all the food they need, right out of people's hands!
My poor dear FiL, in his late 80s, became frightened to go out in his garden because the woman in the adjoining bungalow used to stupidly throw food up onto her roof for the herring gulls. They consequently nested there and would dive bomb him almost every time he went out. As he was nearly blind and had lost virtually all of his hearing, he had no warning and on several occasions they made him stumble. He was really very scared that he would have a fall with serious consequences. They are pests, pure and simple, and should not be encouraged. This was in Brixham and if you talk to any of the residents there they will tell you what an absolute curse these birds are.

Only about one in four fox cubs survives to adulthood.

I don't feed the seagulls only the local songbirds. The pigeons are an unintended consequence , and so after trying all sorts of defence I gave them their own food and we have settled at that. The seagulls merely took up residence, living by the sea it happens.

I am a wildlife lover, and do not distinguish between those wildlife that know their place and those that don't. It does not to me seem a rational position to prefer one sort of wildlife I.e. those that don't make a nusance of themse!lves and those that do.

Agree with you, whitewave.
I have a woodpigeon who sits in the waterbowl on my seed feeder, and drops seeds all over the ground. I just think that they are then destined for the groundfeeding blackbirds and dunnocks, etc.
I did once ask a roofer to block up the hole in my roof so no starlings could get in. He spent a lot of time on my roof doing nothing and fleeced me of £450. I'd rather have the starlings.

The answer to not being attacked by gulls is not to eat icecream or anything else while walking at the seaside. Did it myself on Friday. Sat outside the shop under an awning. Watched lots of gulls, but they did not attack.

So children shouldn't eat ice creams/candi-floss or whatever at the seaside dj ? That's ridiculous.

Actually there are cases where people can't even go into their own gardens to hang out the washing for fear of being attacked by these enormous gulls.

I had four children with me, gillybob, all sitting down eating icecream, as were the four adults. We were not attacked.
I did not say they should not eat them. I said they should not walk around with them. You can do what you like, but it's daft complaining about being attacked by them when you are carrying what they think is food for them.
They are just animals wanting to survive, after all.

I have lived in a seaside town virtually all of my life with the exception of 3 years when I lived further inland. I have never known it as bad as it is now.

Well whoopee doo your party were not attacked durhamjen .I dare say I could take my three DGC out tonight and we might not be attacked either, does that mean it doesn't happen?

The point I have been trying to make it that there are far too many of them (seagulls that is, not grandchildren ) and they have forgot how to act like SEA birds. They seem to live out of dustbins and snatch food from peoples hands. I have seen it with my own eyes several times and the attack I witnessed on Friday would have most definitely resulted in hospital treatment. Have you seen the beaks on these things?