For All You Wanna Be Twitchers

Gulls are protected, so I doubt it. It's pretty simple, really. All householders and businesses have to do is to stop letting them nest in their chimneys, on ledges, on rooftops, etc., and as far as pigeons are concerned, there's a very tall block of flats here, which hosts nesting peregrine falcons every year. They consume a good number of pigeons, so it's sometimes a matter of a little ingenuity to reduce their numbers.

By the way, for non-twitchers, pigeons breed all year round, so there's no 'breeding season'. A small yard at the side of our flats here produces between ten to twenty per year, but there's no way to get it stopped because the Council won't interfere, it says, with the right of freeholders to do what they like with their own property. Plus, no-one seems to know who owns the tiny yard, so the pigeons carry on producing two to four squabs at a time.
 
Luckily, gulls aren't protected here! There are often people out shooting gulls up on the far side of the rock - I think it's the military that do it, but I'm not sure. Gulls are also often regularly fired at on the runway - either that or they let off flares or bangers to clear the bloody things from the runway just before the planes land!
 
Oh, of course, I forgot! Gib's the bird paradise where a much-admired and briefly photographed rare eagle was shot dead last year. Well done, Gibbos! Another first for preserving wild life!
 
A downmarket newspaper has apologised on behalf of one of its reporters to Millwall Football Club after he claimed fans at the Den were chanting "Seig Heil. Seig Heil" at a recent match.

What he had actually heard was the Brighton fans chanting "Seagulls, Seagulls" :D
 
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