Bird Spikes Are Wonderful

We've had a bit of a problem with Gordon the Gull recently. We have lived in this house for over 14 years and this summer (what am I saying, summer?) Gordon has started pecking at the window at the top of the stairs. Now this window is 12 feet above the landing and doesn't open so I can't open it, reach out, grab him and strangle him. Not that I would do him such harm, I happen to like gulls though Gordon is beginning to try my patience. Anyway outside the window there is a small area of flat roof where Gordon stands to peck the window. He must think, if gulls do think, that it is an other gull challenging him for his lady, or more likely food. So I bought some anti bird spikes and positioned them so the little sod couldn't peck the window. It was either that or leave Basil the cat up there all the time. Actually Basil, quiet rightly, is scared of the gulls, they are bigger than him and have a big sharp beak.
Well the anti bird spikes have done the trick. No more banging on the window which is a good thing as he used to do it 5 minutes after the sun came up and it was very loud. The first time it happened I though the drug squad were hammering on the front door, not that the drug squad have ever hammered on the front door but I do watch Police File on the TV when there is nothing else on.
PS. I don't call the gull Gordon after our elected mayor even though they are similar in their single minded determination to do persistent and stupid things, Gordon pecking endlessly on the window and Gordon Oliver, the mayor, planning to spend £600 000 on a feasibility study to see if he can then go on to spend up to £175 million to build a 3rd harbour here in Torquay to attract cruise ships to dock here. He, the mayor that is, not the gull, says it will benefit the local economy having cruise ship passengers visit here. Well cruise ships do come to Torquay now and then and most of the few passengers that do come ashore immediately board waiting coaches to travel to Exeter, Plymouth or Dartmoor. Very few make it to the vast number of boarded up shops in Fleet St and Union St. So, coach companies, Exeter, Plymouth and Dartmoor will benefit but that isn't what I would call the local economy. I have managed to stop one Gordon but it will take more than a few spikes to stop the other Gordon.

                             This year's seagull chicks If mum is planning to take then down the harbour in a few weeks and teach them how to beg for food from the visitors then the chances of them making it to Christmas look bleak.

Dancing Gull.

I like sea gulls which is unusual for someone living in a sea side town. When I first moved to Torquay I was driving down New Rd into Brixham and a seagull flew into the front nearside windscreen. I was doing 30 mph at the time so you don't need to spend too much time guessing exactly what happened to the poor little thing. I looked in the interior mirror to see what the reaction of my passengers was. In fact there was only one passenger, a dear sweet little old lady who looked as if she was on her way home from a vicarage tea party and for a moment I was concerned that she might be upset, blood and feathers being spread over the window as it were. She quickly dispelled that silly notion, "Oh good. An other of the buggers dead." I was more shocked by her reaction than the death of the bird.

OK. they are noisy and where I live we used to put our rubbish out in black bin bags which the gulls made short work of in their never ending search for something, anything to stick in their bellies. By the time the bin men arrived the next morning the road looked like a land fill site with everything from used nappies to empty beer cans spread from one end of the road to the other. One councillor even suggested pouring bleach over the bags to deter the gulls when we put them out at night for collection the next morning. He isn't a councillor now I might add. In the end we all got seagull proof bin bags and the problem went somewhere else.

Anyway I do take the odd photo of the odd gull I see from time to time but this 30 second video is not something I have seen a gull do before and for all I know does come in the 'odd' category.

This looks edible.

After having a few pecks at the rubber seal round the door and deciding edible was not a word that sprang to mind, this disappointed seagull wandered of to try and find a tourist with a bag of chips. Not much chance of that on a cold day in hell, sorry Brixham. He's got alot to learn.

Not For the Faint Hearted! (Not if you like gulls anyway)

Thursday evening I hit a seagull. No; I didn't walk up to it, grab it and hit it around the head a few times, I hit it with the bus.

It happened like this; I was on my last trip, all I had to do was go to Brixham as a 12A and the back to the depot dead and home for a well earned can of beer. As you drive down Long Road towards the college there is a slight bend in the road, going round the bend I notice a flock of about 50 gulls in the middle of the road. Gulls usually move out of the way but to make sure I gave a quick blast on the horn and all but one flew away. This one mean looking hombre was standing there, staring down the big red, blue white and orange monster heading towards him and was not going to move. The gull had turned into a real hard chicken (well, he was playing chicken with the bus), not a good idea when the bus weighs 11.5 tonnes and is heading towards you at 30 mph. When I was about 10 feet away this idea also penetrated the gull's brain and brain cell 1, brain cell 2 and brain cell 3 all suggested that flying would be a good career move on the part of this gull turned chicken. But chickens can't fly very far, not in quarter of a second anyway. There was a solid thump at the front of the bus followed by a couple of secondary bangs of a lesser nature from the underside of the bus. Oh dear.

Anyway, I went down to the college and round the roundabout and stopped at the stop. No one go on or off. The college is closed for the summer and there are only admin staff and cleaners there at the moment. On the way back up Long Road I was expecting to find the remains of the gull, or worse an injured gull. I was, if the gull was badly injured, prepared to steer the bus in such a way as to end any suffering. I was therefore very pleased when I got back to the site of the impact to find the road was clear, well there were lots of gulls sat at the side of the road staring at me as I drove past. Bit like in a scene from a Hitchcock film. Some how it would seem the gull had made it. Just to make sure, when I got to Brixham I did have a look under the bus just to be sure it wasn't wedged some where, in a wheel arch or some place similar.

Friday morning, again driving a 12A I went down to the college. As I drove down Long Road I thought about the gull. How tough it must have been to get hit by a bus and not loose all. It was a big disappointment when I when round the roundabout at the bottom of Long Road and saw there in the roadway the remains, the very flat and battered remains of the gull. Poor sod.