Urban Gull
They may divide opinion, but there are many reasons why we should be grateful for the much-maligned Herring Gull
Ruth Miller on why more people should appreciate the muchmaligned Herring Gull
Awhite bird on a rooftop throws back its head and calls to the dawn, ‘WEEARK, WEEARK, weeark, weeark, weeark, weeark!’ The call is picked up by one bird and then another across the manmade cliff-scape of roofs and chimneys. The Herring Gulls of Llandudno are waking up. For some, this is the soundscape of the seaside, as much a part of the scene as sandy beaches and buckets and spades. For others, these are the calls of aggressive attackers to be controlled and kept away from our seaside towns. Love them or loathe them, you can’t ignore Herring Gulls.
From April onwards, urban Herring Gulls have taken up their stations across town, seeking out suitable chimney pots or rooftop ledges on which to build their nests. Laying between two and four eggs, they are usually successful in rearing two youngsters in a rooftop landscape which to them is as suitable as a coastal cliff. But this brings them into close contact with humans and the start of the potential conflict between our two species. As protective parents, Herring Gulls won’t tolerate a perceived threat to their young, and if your front door or garden is close to their nest, that threat may include you as you go about your daily life.
Sharing lunch
The uneasy coexistence between man and urban gull becomes even more fraught once the young have fledged and join the adults in seeking their own food. Herring Gulls are intelligent, they have keen eyesight and excellent hearing, and combining those skills, they are the ultimate opportunist. And we humans keep creating the perfect opportunity for them to feed – or occasionally, to help themselves to our food.
There’s a growing trend to eat al fresco. Even North Wales, with its reputation for rain, has a flourishing café society, with plenty of outdoors dining areas and takeaway food available to eat on benches, along the scenic promenade of Llandudno. All very nice and seaside-y, but, unfortunately, what may have started as a fun thing to do – throwing the odd chip to the Herring Gulls – has now got out of hand. Those ultimate opportunists have learned to identify people as an easy source of food. Why use energy flying miles out to sea to look for a fish shoal when a holidaymaker will throw you a chip just for standing there?
We humans have made it too easy for them, by providing ample opportunities to grab a meal: we walk along with our food out in the open, our litter bins are full to overflowing with our leftovers, we drop our rubbish on the pavement as we walk.
Who can blame Herring Gulls for sometimes taking matters into their own hands (or beaks) by helping themselves to our fish and chips without waiting to be invited? Cue the media to publish stories such as “Herring Gull Snatched Chihuahua From Owner’s Garden” and using inflammatory words like ‘muggers’, ‘attackers’ and ‘terrorisers’ to describe incidents where Herring Gulls overstep our boundaries to take what they see as an easy
meal (by the way, the chihuahua story was a hoax). There seems to be a correlation between the increase in the media use of the language of war to refer to gulls and the increase in complaints made to local councils about ‘gull problems’ in our urban environment. We just do not seem to be able to share our living space with other species. So, what can be done? There are two protagonists in this modern-day conflict: Herring Gulls and humans, so let’s consider both.
Drastic measures
A recent article in British Birds magazine investigated the measures used by local authorities across the UK to regulate gulls in our towns and cities. These have ranged from using deterrents such as spikes, repellent gels and netting to prevent gulls from nesting in the first place, to more controversial and disruptive actions such as egg replacement, egg oiling, chick removal, with one council even resorting to shooting aggressive birds, in order to stop them raising young once a nest has been made. However, many councils found that their actions had limited success; the gulls simply moved on or circumvented the measures and urban-nesting gulls have continued to multiply.
Let’s not forget that Herring Gulls are Red-listed in the UK, i.e. they are a bird species of highest conservation concern, so perhaps we should be celebrating the fact that these threatened birds have adapted to thrive in our urban environment.
Humans are the other party in the ‘urban gull problem’, so what can we ourselves do? After all, we’re the ones who see the situation as problematic, the gulls see only suitable nest sites with convenient access to food. Better education has got to be a good starting point. Signs advising people not to feed Herring Gulls are often ignored, but do we need stronger enforcement? Can’t we tell the tale from the gulls’ point of view? Instead of the media maligning Herring Gulls as evil chip-muggers, cannot more be done to educate the general public about the plight of our iconic ‘seagulls’, and their Red-listed status as their traditional food sources become scarcer with diminishing fish stocks in our seas? Imagine the eeriness of a seaside fishing town without gulls and that classic soundscape? Shouldn’t we live more tidily and clear up after ourselves more effectively, so our leftovers are out of temptation’s way?
It’s been suggested that the best way to deter a Herring Gull from taking your chips is to stare at it. So, go ahead, stare away. Take a good look at a Herring Gull and observe just how smart an adult bird looks: pristine snow-white feathers over its body, soft dove-grey wings, intelligent eyes observing the world, and that wonderful chip-coloured bill. It’s a bird perfectly adapted to life on the coast and we should feel privileged to share our coastal towns with these incredible neighbours.
Sources:
British Birds issue 112: The regulation of Urban Gulls in the UK: a study of control measures by Sarah Trotter
BTO.org