Gulls: Stories of Love and Hate from Beside the Sea
As I live in a fishing port gulls are common place. Here’s one of the little fellows eyeing me up at our favourite fish cafe on the harbour. He’s a regular there, probably as people feed him chips through the open window. Thankfully he wasn’t interested in my pint.
The gulls around our way are comparatively placid compared to their cousins in other areas of the country. Their Cornish relatives are particularly lairy. I’ve seen the ones that literally snatch ice cream cones from the mouths of babes at Padstow and the beasts that hunt in packs at St Ives. One of the gang pretended to be injured thus gaining the attention of a poor unsuspecting bloke having his lunch. While he was caught off guard the gull’s accomplice swooped in and nicked his pasty.
Nesting Season
Our town’s resident gulls only seem to be a particular problem when they have chicks. The mayhem starts in about May and lasts two or three months. I’m so wary that I change my jogging route. Funnily enough down by the sea there’s never a problem but my usual warm up trot around is out. I’ve been swooped a few times. There’s also a danger spot on a nearby housing estate. Lord knows what they don’t like about me. Maybe it’s the grey hair.
I know when I’m under threat when I hear a distinctive ‘cack, cack, cack’ noise and before I know it there’s the feel of claws across the top of my head. Or a shower of seagull shit. I’m not sure what’s worse but I do have a certain respect for an animal that uses its excrement as a weapon. And as a mum myself I have a certain empathy with a creature that’s only trying to guard its babies.
Animal Communication
I was guided to watch this video on a course that I’ve completed twice. It’s the fascinating story of Anna Breytenbach who’s a South African animal communicator. If one person out there watches this as a result of this post my job is done. Our homework for the week was to communicate with an animal ourselves.
On the first occasion I asked the local seals to stay away from me on my sea swims. I’ll tell the story about my close seal encounter that prompted that request another time. On the next occasion I decided to tackle the tricky problem of the gulls. We were away on a campsite at the time and I asked that the gulls would not attack me anymore. To be honest I didn’t hold out much hope in my powers.
On the very same day that I’d made my request I was sitting outside the motorhome with my book. This fellow came and sat with me. He was not begging for food but just hanging out. He came back to sit close to me quite a few times. Now that I wouldn’t have seen that as particularly remarkable on its own. I certainly wouldn’t have thought that it warranted telling my story here. But then later, at around dusk something far more unusual happened.
I stepped out of the motorhome to head off to the shower. And there he was again. The gull accompanied me all the way over to the toilet block, flying close by but not so near as to cause alarm. And then on the way back the same thing happened. It was if I had my personal chaperone! I wonder if I’ll be safe during nesting season and whether I’ll be brave enough to tell my new found powers.
Disclaimer
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