Ya Bezzer! Posted August 3 Share Posted August 3 1 hour ago, rollstar said: I think most of the big aggressive seagulls you see are herring gulls, which have light grey wings, and sometimes lesser-black backed gulls which are fairly closely related to them. The giant ones are great black-backed gulls but I only ever see one or two of them at a time, I've never noticed them away from the coast. If you see gulls that look like herring gulls but not so big then they are probably common gulls. Black headed gulls are quite small, and I don't know if you ever get kittiwakes in urban areas. I live in an urban area and have an oyster catcher flying round in a circle all night making a noise like a dog's chew toy over and over and over and over. The seagulls here are terrible. The amount of noise they make during the night is absolutely hellish. I'm woken up every night by it. They usually start about 3am and make the worst cacophony imaginable until about 7am. With at least two car alarms going off for half an hour a night plus the above I'm loving it right now. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollstar Posted August 3 Share Posted August 3 To be pedantic, oyster catchers are waders, not gulls. Their noise is annoying but at least they don't attack people as far as I know (kittiwakes are a type of gull). Herring gulls wake me up during the night if I don't wear ear plugs during the summer months, there's a woman downstairs who was definitely feeding them last year. I think someone might have told her to stop this year. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedgecutter Posted August 3 Author Share Posted August 3 (edited) 46 minutes ago, Ya Bezzer! said: I live in an urban area and have an oyster catcher flying round in a circle all night making a noise like a dog's chew toy over and over and over and over. I once spent a couple of months surveying a section of foreshore (much of it hard-to-reach) and these b*****d things irked me the entire time. Eeee-eeee-eeeee. It was bearable only because I accepted that I was invading their safe havens, but I've developed an admittedly OTT hatred for them as a result. If they're stupid enough to be looking for seafood in my local park (they're probably just after worms, aren't they) then they deserve anything that comes to them. Edited August 3 by Hedgecutter 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollstar Posted August 3 Share Posted August 3 23 minutes ago, Hedgecutter said: If they're stupid enough to be looking for seafood in my local park then they deserve anything that comes to them. Oyster catchers come into towns to build nests on flat roofed buildings - I think they have mostly gone back to the sea shores now. Whereas gulls nest on flat roofed buildings but stay all year round to feed on scraps. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ya Bezzer! Posted August 3 Share Posted August 3 8 minutes ago, rollstar said: Oyster catchers come into towns to build nests on flat roofed buildings - I think they have mostly gone back to the sea shores now. Whereas gulls nest on flat roofed buildings but stay all year round to feed on scraps. The gulls round my way don't stay, they only stay here during the summer - thank god! We get black headed gulls during the winter (but not during the summer) but they aren't really a problem as they don't make a noise or menace people. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedgecutter Posted August 3 Author Share Posted August 3 (edited) 1 hour ago, rollstar said: Oyster catchers come into towns to build nests on flat roofed buildings - I think they have mostly gone back to the sea shores now. Whereas gulls nest on flat roofed buildings but stay all year round to feed on scraps. Tbf, Aberdeen probably doesn't help itself given almost every pre-80s building seems to have a dormer of some form. Beside a harbour in what uses to be a major herring fishing port. What could possibly go wrong. That said, it's not like there's any shortage of nearby cliffs for them to go to though. The other seabirds seem happy enough there. Perhaps the fulmars and kittiwakes booted the workshy beggars out thousands of years ago. Has anybody else noticed how they've been migrating to places with a Jobcentre Plus? Coincidence? Edited August 3 by Hedgecutter 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottsdad Posted August 3 Share Posted August 3 Isn't oyster catching another phrase meaning spunk swallowing? Spoiler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollstar Posted August 3 Share Posted August 3 I'm just going to use this thread as an otherwise unavailable opportunity to vent my frustration at the coverage of the slightly injured "seagull" that was on the pitch at the beginning of the All Ireland Gaelic Football final, which I watched on iPlayer last week. It was mildly irritating to me that the commentators were calling it a "seagull" for the 10 minutes or so it was on the pitch, I can't expect them to know about stuff I'm interested in when I can't name a single Gaelic Football position other than goalkeeper. But in all the subsequent banter, everyone else has kept on saying "seagull". This has caused me to pathetically and impotently rage "DOES NO-ONE KNOW THAT IT'S A f**kING HERRING GULL!!!???". 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coprolite Posted August 4 Share Posted August 4 On 03/08/2024 at 11:51, rollstar said: To be pedantic, oyster catchers are waders, not gulls. Their noise is annoying but at least they don't attack people as far as I know (kittiwakes are a type of gull). Herring gulls wake me up during the night if I don't wear ear plugs during the summer months, there's a woman downstairs who was definitely feeding them last year. I think someone might have told her to stop this year. I was repeatedly attacked by Oystercatchers that were nesting by an old cinder running track that I was running around. They didn’t make physical contact but did fly right up to my head and shouted in my ear, which was disconcerting. They have evil looking beady red eyes. This was before the Tony Blair poster but they looked like that. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alert Mongoose Posted August 4 Share Posted August 4 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scary Bear Posted August 4 Share Posted August 4 I like them. They are pleasant to look at. They can be trained; my friend has one and it knows that if it sits on his window sill and chaps the window with its beak, he’ll occasionally give it some food. DO NOT FEED THE GULLS!!! £80!!! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scary Bear Posted August 4 Share Posted August 4 19 hours ago, rollstar said: I'm just going to use this thread as an otherwise unavailable opportunity to vent my frustration at the coverage of the slightly injured "seagull" that was on the pitch at the beginning of the All Ireland Gaelic Football final, which I watched on iPlayer last week. It was mildly irritating to me that the commentators were calling it a "seagull" for the 10 minutes or so it was on the pitch, I can't expect them to know about stuff I'm interested in when I can't name a single Gaelic Football position other than goalkeeper. But in all the subsequent banter, everyone else has kept on saying "seagull". This has caused me to pathetically and impotently rage "DOES NO-ONE KNOW THAT IT'S A f**kING HERRING GULL!!!???". Shut your noise Attenborough you flump. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedgecutter Posted September 3 Author Share Posted September 3 Scum. Sub Aves Scum. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9d121dzyyxo Quote Children hurt as herring gull attacks 'out of control' Seven children were attacked by herring gulls in the space of a month and left with gashes to their scalps, councillors have been told. The local authority heard claims that the birds in the coastal town of Eyemouth were "out of control". Councillor James Anderson - who represents the area - said children had been left with blood running down their faces in the incidents. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Florentine_Pogen Posted September 3 Share Posted September 3 On 04/08/2024 at 14:09, coprolite said: I was repeatedly attacked by Oystercatchers that were nesting by an old cinder running track that I was running around. They didn’t make physical contact but did fly right up to my head and shouted in my ear, which was disconcerting. They have evil looking beady red eyes. This was before the Tony Blair poster but they looked like that. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.