• fakeman_pretendname@feddit.ukEnglish
    172·
    9 months ago

    An inland urban seagull fully robbed a Greggs Chicken Bake directly out of my hands in the middle of town last year, so I applaud this man’s speed and “killer instinct”.

    It landed on my shoulder, flapped it’s wings at my head to put me in the “what in the f–king f–k?!?” posture, then before I’d worked out what was going on, he’d leant forward and snatched the whole thing from my hand, before flying off, then dropping it 50 metres ahead, where him and five of his mates tucked in. I get the impression it’s a tried and tested manoeuvre.

    Of course, still calls himself a seagull, but never caught a fish or seen the sea in his life, the podgy urban skybastard.

    • GreatAlbatross@feddit.ukOPEnglish
      6·
      9 months ago

      My sister lost a pasty to one once.
      A seagull basically landed on her back, she dropped the food in surprise, and the bird’s mate swooped in to eat it on the ground.

      • frog 🐸@beehaw.orgEnglish
        5·
        9 months ago

        A friend lost a pasty to one last year in St Ives. Having lived in St Ives for over 40 years, and being warned by the bakery to guard his pasty closely, and holding it close to his chest as he walked out of the shop. It just swooped right in, grabbed it, and flew off with it. Kinda got to admire the seagull that’s able to steal a pasty from a dude with extensive experience protecting his lunch from seagulls.

  • frog 🐸@beehaw.orgEnglish
    121·
    9 months ago

    Seagulls are more endangered than people think they are, though (red listed in the UK, population decline of over 50% in the last 40 years), in large part because humans took all their food. I think a fair trade might be that they won’t steal our chips if we don’t steal their fish? You know, rather than pointless animal cruelty. Fuck this dude.

    • GreatAlbatross@feddit.ukOPEnglish
      81·
      9 months ago

      Definitely fuck this dude.
      Growing up, there were stories of kids feeding them baking powder, which always seemed a horrible thing to do.

      Afaik, black backed and herring gulls (which to my knowledge are the most common around here) are classed as LC.

      But we should absolutely be cutting back on fishing. It’ll be a sad day when the fisheries inevitably collapse :(

      • frog 🐸@beehaw.orgEnglish
        4·
        9 months ago

        We had an injured one outside my house last summer. Some local kids kicked it to death literally while I was on the phone to the RSPCA to find out if it could be helped. Kids suck.

        Herring gulls are LC globally, but are now on the red list for the UK-specific bird conservation list (and amber for Ireland), due to the massive decline in population here. For black-backed gulls, it’s amber and green respectively, so they’re not as badly affected, but their UK population is still in decline. Whether a local population is worth protecting when a species is doing okay globally is a matter of some debate, of course, but I feel we would have lost something as a country if we didn’t have seagulls anymore, regardless of whether the rest of the planet has them or not.

        • GreatAlbatross@feddit.ukOPEnglish
          4·
          9 months ago

          Thanks for the info, TIL!

          I do remember seeing herring gulls eating, then getting chased off by bigger black-backs.