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ghosttruck

Level 57 Taco Wizard
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An elderly couple in the UK claimed that they were held hostage by a pair of seagulls nesting on the roof of their Lancashire home. Every time they tried to leave the birds would become aggressive and attack them.

Roy and Brenda Pickard’s story sounds like a real life version of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Birds”. The elderly couple were held hostage in their own home by a pair of adult Herring Gulls after the birds’ chicks slipped on the roof of the house and landed onto the canopy directly above the front door. Every time Roy tried opening the front door, he was confronted by two angry squawking adult seagulls. One time, when he decided to take his chances and go outside, the 71-year-old was hit so hard on the back of the head that he had to be taken to the hospital for help. Local authorities have installed a gazebo outside the couple’s home, which should offer some protection, but that’s the best they can do for now.

“The whole thing has been terrible,” Roy Prickard told reporters. “I’ve not been able to go out of the front door. If I try to get out of the door, the two adult birds are right there and I’ve got no chance. It’s genuinely frightening. My wife isn’t well or very mobile at the moment so we’re relying on me to get out.”

Luckily, the Prickard’s garage is connected to their house and he can get out through there when he needs to do some shopping, but he doesn’t dare get out of the car to close the garage door, so he always leaves it open until he comes back.

Roy has complained about the situation both to the local authorities and animal organizations like the RSPCA and RSPB, but their solutions have been less than ideal. The Wyer Council says that Herring Gulls are protected while nesting, so all they can do is try to make the couple’s life bearable by installing a gazebo and making arrangements so that 77-year-old Brenda can reach her private appointments safely.

 
Local authorities have installed a gazebo outside the couple’s home, which should offer some protection, but that’s the best they can do for now.

The best they could do is kill the chicks so the gulls think that it is not a good spot to build a nest. Then if the gulls return next year, destroy their nest or kill the chicks. Repeat as necesssary. Instead, they enable the birds at the expense of elderly residents.
 
when I was really small child like 3 or 4 we went to Galveston & one almost took my finger off trying to steal a french fry, don't trust them but they are just aggressive birds and be can be fought if need be, they said I asked if we could shoot and fry it and would it taste like chicken as that did happen when my uncles favorite rooster had attacked me [but it was made into chicken salad]
 
Here in N Texas those cattle egrets are the scourge during their annual nesting season. A few years ago there was a group of them nesting in a row of trees I pass daily. At the same time, there was a Walmart Marketplace grocery store being built and that row of trees was at the very back end of the lot. I wondered how it would be handled since those birds are protected. As I suspected, Walmart tore out all those trees except about 3 near the road, and all the birds disappeared never to return.

This is pretty much the only thing people hate about cattle egrets.


Of course, we have some gulls, too, that hang out at local lakes but nothing like what you'd see on the coast.
 
I know I sure wanted to shoot that bastard that shit on me. And having killed it, I would of course have to eat it.

--Al
what;s funny, is while I remember many things from that age or younger don't remember the actual two incident just people talking about them to me & others over what happened, I guess trauma or something but I have no fear of birds
 
Blue Jays are vicious and nasty they killed a kitten of mine when I was a child.

I usually try to stop Autumn, Jack, Loki & Levi 1 from killing chipmunks I let them go to town on the Blue Jays.
 
I've always liked seagulls, I know they're assholes but they're part of my youth.
I've got a lot of funny stories about seagulls growing up in FL but I've never weaponized them to look at boobies. :angelic:


I wanted one so bad once when my whole family camped out at the beach. My Granddad was like, OK kid, you want one, I'll get you one. He set a snare, lured them in with some kind of chips or something, and boom! I had a seagull on a leash (with a snare around its foot) for the day. :smuggrin:

People around the campsite were looking at us like :wideyed:

We also had great fun that trip feeding raccoons. ❤️
 
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