On Strategy And Unlikely Allies

The summer solstice has passed, and, as July dawned, the weather remained hot and the sky clear. No morning or early evening gloom in which to surreptitiously sneak meals out for the crows. Sunrise at 4:45 am and sundown after 10 pm. If the sun is up, the gulls are up, and they’re on high alert for anything that might be edible. One gull is nuisance enough, but as the days rolled on the word got round. Suddenly I found myself dealing with 6 of them.

Clearly my adversary is smarter than I thought. This required another dive into the brainpower of the birds. If I can understand gull psychology I will figure out how to thwart them. I cannot be bested by a bird whose sole contribution to society is chip theft and the ability to shred your sanity by deploying the 17.6 screeches per minute sonic attack at 6 am.

What do I know about gulls?

They are afraid of nothing. Not cars. Not dogs. Not God. And certainly not people. No, people are where the best and most easy pickings are found.

One of their specialist moves is kleptoparasitism: stealing food from those who’ve already done the hard work to get it.

They will brake-check cars and saunter down the middle of the road to hold up the traffic on purpose. They will land in your plate and take your roast chicken and chips while their eyes invite you to ‘go ahead, try and stop me, feeble human’.

They are always up for a fight. Their aggression dial is permanently stuck on “pub at closing time.”

They adapt and overcome. They’re like the Borg of the bird world, exploiting every new human structure, food source and opportunity that comes their way.

These guys are smart. And criminal. They should be in prison!

By comparison, the crows are the broody, misunderstood goths of the bird world. So clever, yet so fragile.

They’re tool users, pattern recognisers, rememberers of human faces, afraid of people, wary of unfamiliar sounds, spooked by sudden movements.

They could invent a miniature catapult, but they’d worry the launch might seem a little aggressive.

They could be the masters of the skies, but they’re masters of nothing because they’re too polite to push back. Karen lands, and they excuse themselves from their own restaurant.

These guys are super smart. And suffer from anxiety. They should be in therapy.

But the crows have an advantage the gulls don’t. A human ally.

I am not clever like the crows. I am not bold like the gulls. But I am petty. And resourceful. And I have thumbs.

I was done playing passive serving wench. It was time to up the stakes and design an anti-gull fortress. Something that would attract the crows but prove to be too much like hard work for the bin chickens. And I was going to have to do it using tools I had to hand - trinkets and spite.

You can’t stop gulls. But you can inconvenience them consistently. And in war, inconvenience is power.

They have wings. I have WiFi, Google and a grudge.

Cue: Birdie Buffet Mk 3 - Oak Edition