701 Vs. The Seagulls

Ever since I was little, I’ve been nervous around animals. I used to be fully terrified of them, which was a pain as all of my friends seemed to have ‘beloved’ pets that I’d have to show enthusiasm towards, too. I used to want to cry at the sight of yappy, bitey, ‘just playing’ dogs that looked like they wanted to chew my precious face off, and I used to feel sick at the suggestion ‘why don’t you hold it?’, ‘it’ being a hamster or a rabbit or, God forbid, a cat. Now, as a full-on, twenty-something adult, I’m more annoyed by animals than scared of them. I don’t buy into the ‘doggo’ craze and I have to fight to roll my eyes at pictures of cute animals, with the exception of My Best Friend Hank, whose snout and little smile holds a special place in my cold heart. But while I like to say I’m not scared of animals, one animal will always be an exception; birds.

I hate birds. I hate that they can be literally anywhere and descend through the sky like kamikaze pilots. I hate how if the flake of a Greggs sausage roll hits the floor, a thousand feculent, flea-ridden, hideous, gammy pigeons will swarm. I hate their feathers, their wings flapping, their sharp beaks, their beady little eyes; I just really, really hate them. Now, I’m not confined to my house or anything, so my ornithophobia could be worse, but I will cross streets to avoid clusters of birds, and my least favourite location on earth is Middlesbrough town centre, where the pigeons fly as low as Lil John.

So this takes me to the latest chapter in my tragic saga of a life. A family of seagulls has nested on the roof of my building, and I happen to live on the top floor.

The first time I noticed this was at the end of April, when I started hearing the shriek of the airborne vermin more and more frequently. Unsettling, but nothing I’d lose sleep over. That was until I was awoken for the first time at half past six in the morning by a peculiar banging sound. I lay still for a moment, trying to figure out what the hell it was, when I realised it was something tapping the window. “No,” I thought. “It couldn’t be.” But it was. When I pulled back the curtains I was met with the ungodly sight of a grim, grey little baby seagull pecking at my window like there was no tomorrow. Like the rational adult I am, I squealed, shut the curtains, dived back into bed and tried not to cry as I considered setting the flat on fire.

 At first, I was the only one whose window was tapped. It’s like they knew I was the most afraid. But then, the next day, my flatmate Zara’s – who’s in the room next to mine – got tapped, too. Our windows have ledges, you see, for the seagulls to comfortably stand on as they peck, peck, peck away at both our windows and our sanity. And did I mention they arrived at no later than eight o’clock in the morning, too? Most rude awakening I’ve ever had. One morning it even came for me at five. Five. Not even coal miners get up that early. For a few days, it seemed as though the baby would tap in the morning, then get bored and move on, leaving the rest of the day relatively bird-free.

And then we met its daddy.

This seagull is literally the size of a small bloody dog and has the eternal fiery wrath of hell in its eyes. I have had several a run-ins with it, the worst of which being the time I was hanging up some clothes, and I spotted it standing staring straight at me. I tapped on the window and it didn’t even flinch. So, naturally, I ran into my bathroom, locked the door and had a pathetic little cry. I don’t have panic attacks and I’m generally anxiety-free, but the sight of that big seagull staring me down actually brought on some hyperventilation. I knew it couldn’t get me, but what did it want from me? Food? My blood? Probably both.

And I’m not the only one who’s been intimidated by it. Poor Zara even spilled some tea on the floor thanks to the shock of it appearing in the hallway window, literally out of nowhere. It likes to hang around by the hallway window, as I saw when it actually ran at me, eyes narrowed like a lioness before it leaps on the innocent gazelle. Yelling appears to be an effective way to get rid of them in the short term, for another time when it popped out of nowhere I yelled my head off and it swiftly flew away. Lucy: 1, Seagull: 0. 

Another flatmate of mine, Kai, has been bothered by seagull senior too, accepting that “it’s trying to kill us” when he saw it pecking at his window. He even filmed it.

    LOOK AT IT. JUST LOOK.

Anyway, we did some research and we can’t get rid of them. It is illegal to destroy a seagull’s nest during nesting season (thanks a bunch, RSPCA and hippies, really appreciate it), which means we have to wait for EVEN MORE eggs to hatch and EVEN MORE seagulls to harass us. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want them dead, mainly because the thought of a dead seagull lying outside my window to rot makes me feel sick. I just want them to move on. But it’s ok, because we move out soon. And, admittedly, I’ve already run away to home for a few days to hide from them (and to see my family too of course). Yes, I am being chased out by a family of birds. Sue me, call me an anti-bird bigot; in reality, I’m just a wimp.

I looked up other alternatives to scare them away as well. Apparently they’re wary of big wooden owls – think of a miniature scarecrow – but I have no way of getting on the roof, and unless you move them regularly, the birds recognise them as fakes. I also don’t think maintenance will waste their time putting unsightly spikes on the ledge outside their window, even though I would literally pay them to do that at this point. Honestly, desperate times call for desperate measures.

But what’s the moral of this story, you might ask. Well, unfortunately there isn’t one. All you need to know is I’m a sniveling, bird-fearing ‘adult’ who is going to milk the trauma of being stalked by the one thing I fear the most for as long as I can. And knowing me, that’ll be forever.