Gatecrasher to the gull breakfast party

Living near the sea, i get quite a few seagulls come visiting for scraps. Over the years we have had regular, daily visits from a mating pair of herring gulls that we named Alfie and Minnie. in the pecking order of the avian world, Alfie, with his dictatorial attitude, had established himself as the alpha male, and was greatly respected by all the other local birds.

But one morning their quiet ‘breakfast’ was rudely interrupted by an interloper, who, within seconds, had swiped the remains of the food left in the two bowls. The invader was a big blackbacked herring gull, which i named Bertie. He looked us over and then spotted, on the ground beside me, a half empty tin of dog food, with a fork stuck in the meaty chunks. He snatched up the fork, threw it across the patio, plunged his head into the tin and noisily consumed the remains. Lacking any table manners, he then picked up the empty can and tossed it in my direction. it hit the ground and rattled along the flagstones. When it came to a stop by my feet, he glared at me for a few seconds, then gave out a loud, scolding squawk. Alfie, who had been having a snooze on top of the fence, dashed down to defend his territory.

A hasty lawn landing resulted in a skidding stop. Undaunted, Alfie picked himself up, coming beak to beak with a much larger opponent who was flourishing a fork at a dangerous angle. Unsettled by his crash landing, and confronted by a much bigger and bolder Bertie, Alfie suddenly lost his nerve. To save face he adopted a submissive mode, and went into a distraction routine. For Bertie’s benefit, this involved taking an excessive amount of interest in his feet, picking bits out from between the scales on his legs, and giving his nails an extremely close inspection. He then slowly selected a few feathers, which appeared to need a great deal of preening. He followed this with a good, hearty shake and shuffling of his plumage.

However, Bertie was no longer interested in any confrontation with Alfie; he was now more taken by the sight of another tin of dog food just inside the top of my shopping bag. He scooped up the fork and, somewhat clumsily, attempted to hit this can, drawing my attention to the fact that it needed opening up.

Alfie, with as much dignity as he could muster, seized the opportunity to make a speedy exit, leaving behind Minnie, his mate, who had been utterly fascinated by this interloper’s unruly behaviour. When Bertie realised no more tins of dog food were going to be opened, he lost interest and flew off, noisily expressing his opinions about the lack of grub. Alfie, having lost face, along with his usual swaggering reputation, quietly crept back a little later to check out the area. Although obviously relieved to see that bullying Bertie had gone, Alfie’s hypedup reputation as the ‘big boss bird’ had gone, too!