My growing hatred for gulls will come as no surprise
Good grief!
The car had only been parked at the back door for 20 minutes while I had grabbed a hurried breakfast in between a spot of early-morning golf practise and the first tasks of the day.
What a filthy mess – it seemed astonishing that a single bird could do all that in one fell swoop, so to speak. All over the front of the bonnet and the headlights; it was off, yet again, to the car wash.
I mean, for goodness sake, what are they eating?
This was no wee dropping from a sparrow or a blackbird, this was as if an ostrich had been up in the beech tree above the car. As I looked up, I thought to myself, how on earth could a gull with its webbed feet stand in a beech tree anyway? I have never seen a gull in a tree.
But the previous time, when I left the car in the same spot for a whole day, it was as if precision bombing with monster two-tone white and brown liquid avian turds had been taking place. Liquid they might have been on initial impact, but when I came to deal with the mess, they were far from liquid. It took the high-pressure hose and much elbow grease to stop me being the laughing stock of Tain.
After that episode, I remembered to park the car away from the beech tree, but then this Monday, after the golf practise, I forgot the precaution positioning and ended up paying the penalty. Bah.
But here is the strange thing – during the time the car was not below the beech tree, no pooh appeared on the gravel in that particular place. But as soon as the car is back – splat! Or rather – sploosh! It is as if they are playing a deliberate game with me and saving it all up until a light blue VW Golf appears below.
But here is another strange thing – if they are not "doing" it from a perch within the tree, then they must be indulging in high-altitude bombing from above the tree. But then how does the stuff get through the dense leaf canopy before it hits my car? Or are we talking low-level delivery at point blank range from under the tree canopy?
I don't know, but it is most annoying, and disgusting too.
"Strange..." I said two months ago when, at the back door, I spied short tufts of rushes that had nearly, but not quite, been eaten down to the ground by livestock in the front field.
"Now how have they got here?"
"Yaark!"
Damnation – the gulls were setting about building a nest by the chimney pots directly above, and they were using rushes as their building material. I shouted and shook my fist. "Yaark!" But they didn't move.
Then, of course the solution came to me. It was perfectly stark staring obvious. A couple of newspapers and as much plastic packaging as I could find in the kitchen bin. One match struck in the fireplace, sparks and black smoke now belching out of the chimney, and the "whitehawks" (have I got this quite right?) soon shoved off. Victory! And then they started having a go at the car. How I loathe gulls.
The all-weather pitch at Tain Academy – something my colleague Councillor Alasdair Rhind laboured mightily to have put in place – cannot be used this summer. Why? Because a great flock of gulls have gone and built nests on the pitch's manmade surface.
When they do eventually move on, then the gulls' nests and poo will have to be removed and that is going to cost money, a lot of which we don't have at the Highland Council right now.
When I was in the school the other day and went out the back to look at the pitch the birds stared back at me balefully. I bet they were the ones who gave the orders to get my car.
Sadly none of what I write will come as any surprise to readers of the Northern Times. We all know what a darned pest they are in our towns and villages. They foul everything up, they are destructive to roof tiles, they spread disease and, when they have chicks, they can be dangerous too. I detest the brutes.
Great God – at 11.53 on Monday morning, as I am writing this very column, they have just done my car over a second time! Twice in one day!!
Words fail me.
"Yaark!"
