Injured Seagull?

[pjh75]

Early this morning we noticed a huge seagull sitting in our front/side garden... not strange as we live by the sea. About an hour later we noticed a lady standing at our front gate and looking at at the door, so OH looked out and the seagull was now on our front step.

He went outside (our dog followed him), expecting it to fly away and it didn't. It got up, semi-spread it's wings, shuffled away and then sat down again, beak-to-nose with our dog, who was a bit bemused by the whole thing. We assumed that for some reason it can't fly - normally when they hang around our garden, which is pretty much every day, the minute you open the door they fly off and sit on the garage roof... you can't get anywhere near them.

I looked up the RSPB number on the internet and it advises to ring the RSPCA, so we did that and they said they would get someone local to call us. Someone did call back pretty quickly, but they have said we have to monitor it for at least a day?! Apparently this is normal behaviour. I have never come across any bird, apart from domestic ones that don't fly off when you approach them.

OH asked what we should do about our dog going near it, and we also have a puppy who is still at the biting /chewing everything stage! - we don't want to stress out the bird or end up with injured pets - keep them inside she says... as if we are going to keep our pets inside for a whole day. Then she says, don't keep them inside then, but if it reacts and injures them it is your own fault. She asked if it was a baby bird and too young to fly, OH told her that it is actually bigger than our puppy so probably not!

They just don't seem interested at all... their website tells you about the dangers of handling wild animals; disease, being bitten, scratched etc, and that they may need veterinary treatment, but they won't come out to pick it up. OH is really annoyed and feels like it was a waste of time calling them.

It is now in the narrow path at the back of our house, between us and the neighbours (hopefuly their cat won't spot it), which is also where the foxes come in at night - so if they pay us a visit tonight, I doubt there will be a seagull in the morning. It's just a sitting target.

OH went out to give it some food and it freaked out a bit. It isn't eating it, but other birds are now flying down and taking the food.

[di]

We had something a little similar last year,although we don't live near the sea.
There was a full grown gull just sat on the school playing field(backs onto our garden)all day.
I got quite close to it,like you expecting it to fly off and threw food out for it,which it turned it's nose up to.
I was told that perhaps it had lost it's main flock and become a bit disorientated...being so close to the sea I'm not sure you could apply that to yours?
Ours did eventually fly off.

Not sure what you can do re your dogs...obviously you can't keep them in all day with this heat but I'd try to find a way of keeping them away from the bird

Good Luck.x

[pjh75]

Now that you mention it, I remember reading your post last year.

We will definitely keep the dogs away from it - it's just annoying that she would so casually say to keep the dogs inside.

[cupcake]

I doubt that a cat would take on a big gull, it wouldn't get very far! Our old cat did once stalk a pheasant, but it turned on him and he didn't half shift!

[taff]

I found a pigeon before doing the same thing, phoned the rspaca, they were next to useless. They're just not interested in birds it seems. Unless they're pets.

[Patchninja]

It sounds really harsh to say it but I don't think seagulls or pigeons are on anyone's best loved bird list and it's probably just part of the natural life-cycle of the birds. Sometimes, you just have to let nature take its course.

[ailsasyl]

We had a seagull that was on the ground at the front of the house we have a grass square, rspca were not interested as seagulls as seen as vermon up here after a few hours a gang of other seagulls started dive bombing and attacking it, we managed to get a box over it, a neighbour took it but it wasn't eating and had a badly broken wing, so it was put out of its misery.

[pjh75]

It's still there, in the same position and makes a horrendous noise if you go anywhere near it - as if it is in pain, which I don't think it is... just scared probably. We are just going to leave it alone and see what happens.

[jackie j]

Beleive it or not seagulls are protected and you must not kill them without due reason. They are attacking people round here as the young fall out of the nest quite often. They are a b****y nusience, people come here on holiday and think they are cute and start feeding them, even though there are big signs saying DO NOT FEED THE SEAGULLS. Then they complain when the birds wont leave them alone and pinch the food out of your hand. I wouldnt worry about it too much, there are plenty of them.

[pjh75]

It's gone now. OH phoned a different RSPCA number earlier today and they said it's not normal behaviour at all and we shouldn't have been told to just leave it there.

The girl who came out said that they get some sort of botulism which means they slowly lose their strength... explains why it couldn't fly, then just settled in one position sitting down and this morning was only moving it's head. When she picked it up, it made no attempt to do anything apart from look at her.

It kept lookiing at me when I went out to check over my courgettes and pumpkins this morning... freaked me out a bit, I'm not a fan of birds or anything that can fly really.

It would have slowly died in the garden, which is what happens in the wild, but she seemed to think they could sort it out. She also said most of her pick-ups are sick or injured birds... I couldn't do that job.