A bird, or a sandwich, in the hand.

This regal looking fella has been a regular visitor to next doors roof this summer.  I wasn't quite sure if he was a heron or not so I looked him, and his habits, up.  He's a heron alright, and he likes to hang around ponds.

Hmmm...

I've had a look over the fence, but my neighbour hasn't had a pond installed.  Neither has the next house along. Or the one after that.  He drives Rusty mad, because he stands very still and doesn't fly away in terror like the other birds that risk flying over the garden.

This heron is not normally on his own, no, he's usually holding court with a flock of gulls.  Very large gulls.  None of these, the heron or the gulls, have bothered me all summer (I use the term 'summer' in the loosest sense of the word, as we have had a very poor attempt at it this year), until this week.

I listen to the radio while I'm working, and for the past few days I have been listening to tales of aggressive gulls stealing food out of the mouths of babes.  People have been calling in from all over the country.  One man in Abbey Street (Dublin) had his burger snatched out of his hand.  A lady in Galway had her very expensive M&S sandwich taken while she sat in Eyre Square.  That particular gull got his picture taken by onlookers and a round of applause.  Another caller told us how a gull just swooped down and took the chicken out of her salad and left the onions.  I didn't really blame him, I don't like onions in my salad either.  They are also waking the people in the coastal town of Skerries very early in the morning with their noisy antics.  There were also worrying reports of them stealing sweets from children in school yards.

I did laugh!

But then the conversation took a sinister turn.  A farmer from Kerry called in to the station and told how he had to beat gulls off two of his sheep.  Despite his best efforts, the sheep later died.  I had stopped laughing by then...

One of our Senators also called the radio station and told how he has, as a resident of the inner city, experienced the problem and raised the issue in the Oireachtas, but was met with ridicule!  How could they laugh??

All joking aside, something is going to have to be done about problem and Dublin in particular will have to come up with some sort of seagull policy similar to the ones adopted in other cities like Boston and Barcelona.  I think they destroy the eggs in the nests, which helps with the problem.

A very intense guy from an animal rights association also called into the station and said we will all have to change our eating habits and stop walking around the city with ice-cream and sandwiches and kebabs in our hands.  Food for though I suppose... 

In the meantime, I'll be keeping a close eye on the flock on next doors roof.  I won't be culling (sorry!) Rusty's barking, he can bark all he likes at them.  And I'll also be keeping my sandwiches undercover when eating outside!

I'm also checking the telephone directory under the letter 'H' for Hitchcock...


PS..  That still doesn't explain the lone heron?