Fluffy Occupation

Fluffy Occupation is part two of a three-part series: Three Months on a Gull-Infested Roof

Catch up on part one here: Feathered Siege

Fluffy Occupation

When gulls rule the roost.

1st June: Three bouncing babies on a black tar roof

I have learnt that three nestlings is a lot of work. The two adult gulls look completely frazzled trying to keep up while the babies cry for food, more food, more please. When they are finally sated, the three potter all over the rooftop with the gulls attempting to patrol overhead, like some sort of a crazy avian Mad Max.

What’s the Ian McDonald line about triplets? “…as mutually indistinguishable as peas in a pod or days in a prison.”

2nd June: Curiosity killed more than just the cat

Twice, I have caught the little ones pottering excitedly towards my deck. The parents are furious about this but refuse to rein in their offspring, instead barking at me when I dare to come outside, even though I’m sticking to my side of the border (the planter). I thought we had an agreement.

3rd June: How To Baby-Proof a Roof

This morning at some ungodly hour, I heard the nestlings by my bedroom window, which means they’d hopped up onto my deck and bounced their way to Sparrow Corner. I shouted and they scurried away. I’ve put sacks of firewood on either side of the planter where there is a wooden step down to the roof. Basically, I’ve put up stair gates in an attempt to baby-proof the place. How is this my life?

Gary the crow has given up on visiting completely. I think he doesn’t like kids.

6th June: Clandestine Encounter

Today I spotted the three troublemakers by the stairgate. I edged along the planter to get a better look. Half hidden by the spruce branches, the little ones were also sneaking towards me to see what I was doing.

Then Patrol Parent Gull noticed that the kidlets were missing and flew over and barked at everyone and we scattered. It was kind of hilarious.

I won’t do it again. I shouldn’t encourage them.

7th June: Here comes trouble

Huey, Dewey and Louie are growing unbelievably fast. they are still cutely speckled but starting to look gangly. They do everything in threes, like a teenage gang out looking for trouble.

They are obsessed with trying to find their way onto my terrace. coming onto the terrace. Crow Ledge is covered in gull guano from the adult gulls trying to keep their kids in check.

This morning, my eye was caught by movement, something fuzzy on the other side of the make-shift baby gate. I crept carefully towards the wood pile. On the other side, Huey edged forward, his two brothers hiding behind him. For once, they were all three completely silent. We made eye contact. I smiled. Huey looked at me blankly.

A moment later, a huge herring gull flew directly at me. Once I backed off, it landed on the ledge, shrieking at me and then pausing to bark at the little ones.

8th June: Living Room Lockdown

The accord is broken.

Gull Parent’s hysterically screeching pierced my double-glazed windows. The cause of the drama? The fact that I was standing in the living room. I thought it was going to brain itself on my window.

Screaming Parent then turned and barked at the woodpile stairgate, which is when I saw Huey and Dewey peering around it, with Louis behind them. I hadn’t even known they were there until then but the herring gull made it clear that this was All My Fault.

I stood my ground: Come and get me, you fool.

It’s easy to be brave with a pane of glass between us.

The three little ones ran across the roof, looking for all the world like they were giggling with excitement.

9th June: Jackdaw Blitzkrieg

Well, that was unexpected. I thought someone needed to take a stand but I thought that would be me.

Huey, Dewey and Louis were standing in the middle of the roof, looking as clueless as ever. Suddenly a dozen jackdaws circled and flew straight at them them. Screaming gull barrelled towards them while the other gull herded the little ones to hide behind Nestling Tower. A moment later, the jackdaws had all scattered.

Gary came to the ledge for some treats while everyone was recovering.

I’m not sure that I can take the stress of rooftop living. It’s like an avian Game of Thrones up here.

10th June: Awww

The nestlings have taken to falling asleep in a small exhausted heap on random spots on the roof, like kittens.

11th June: Fledglings

Packing for a week away. Huey, Dewey and Louis have been super cute. It’s easy to tell which one is Huey, he’s the largest fledgling. My use of gendered pronouns is extremely questionable though.

They are inseparable, wandering around the roof, Huey in the lead and Louis trailing behind. Right now, they are sleeping in a fluffy pile tangled amongst the building sign’s electrical cables. I can’t help worrying about them but, as usual, their worthless parents are just looking the other way.

They are growing up so fast. I wonder how big they will be when I return.

18th June: Avian Home Invasion

The goddamn gulls had a party on my terrace while I was away.

The deck is covered with bird shit. COVERED. I walked outside and immediately needed a hose to clean my feet with. The three culprits – I know who they are! – stood innocently in the middle of the roof on the roof, watched me with curiosity. The parent gulls moved to attack. Then they called for back up. I dashed back inside and watched from the window as half a dozen gulls whirled and screeched, attempting to drive me out of my own living room.

19th June: The Dark Moment

I spent all afternoon on my knees cleaning the guano off of my terrace with hot water and a scrub brush.

This evening Gary came back but he’s clearly pissed off with me for going away. He landed by the planter instead of Crow Ledge, giving me the cold shoulder. Then he walked back and forth until I went over to find out what he he wanted. He did not look at me but walked to the living room window and dropped a large slice of bread, to show me that he’d brought his own damn food. Then he left, taking the bread with him.

22nd June: Summer Living

The stairgate is useless against toddlers who can flutter over it but I have no idea what else I can do.

24th June: WE ARE STARVING

The fledglings make a high-pitched insistent klee-ew call when they want feeding, bobbing their heads up and down with their beaks gaping wide. The cute little peep when they were little now grates on my nerves like a cross between a rusty hinge and a car alarm. Their cute speckles have receded into a brown scaled overcoat with shaggy down trimming.

Their parents just can’t keep up. Foraging Gull appears three or four times a day and regurgitates food onto the roof that the fledglings gulp down voraciously. Then an hour later, they are hungry again. I presume that this is meant to be motivation for the little ones to start flying and finding their own food but the constant piercing cries at the moment is really, really tiring.

If they would stay on the roof and stop coming on the terrace to cry at me, I would mind a lot less.

28th June: Friends with Benefits

Because my apartment is on the roof of a large building, I sometimes get kids shining laser lights towards my window or overflying the roof with small plastic drones. I know it is just youthful curiosity but I’m not crazy about it.

This time I found the smashed drone on the roof.

I guess the locals didn’t realize that I now have attack gulls.

29th June: I don’t want to talk about it.

Scrubbed the entire deck of the terrace. Again.

There are piles of tiny bones everywhere from where Foraging Gull is disgorging lunch for the little ones to feed from. I’m learning more about gull biology than I ever wanted to know.

30th June: Dinnertime

This evening I sat down in the living room to eat my dinner when the three fledglings fluttered over the stairgate. Again. I’ve been spending daylight hours chasing them away and they just never give up.

I was tired so I pretended I didn’t see them. Then I looked up to see three little faces peering at me through the window. “We know you have pita.”

Guard Dog Gull finally noticed they were missing and came over to scream at me. All three are crying now and Foraging Gull has not returned. Guard Dog Gull looks like she’d like to push the little ones off the roof.

2nd July: Rebels Without Caws

The juveniles, now large and lanky, have claimed my terrace. Even when I’m out there, they loiter by the stairgate all the time, swaggering away when I shoo them and coming right back the moment my back is turned.

They pick at everything – plants, woodpile deck – like bored teenagers raiding the fridge. Then they turn to me. “C’mon, Auntie Sylvia. We just want you to regurgitate some fish for us! Don’t be mean.”

3rd July: First Flight!

Huey has just flown a few feet across the terrace! His parents didn’t see but he definitely was flying. I shoo’d him away and then he did it again across the roof in full sight of everyone.

The other two are watching but don’t seem to want to try it for themselves, yet.

4th July: Don’t mind me, I’m just the unpaid help

Scrubbed down the deck again. Another morning, another guano-covered terrace.

5th July: Unintended Consequences

This morning, I chased the miscreants off of my terrace, infuriated. They all fluttered away but Huey actually, almost accidentally, took flight. He seemed as surprised as I was and flew west, instead of north towards the safe territory of the roof. He attempted to turn back but his wings don’t have the strength to fly back up. He landed on the rooftop below, stranded.

I feel terrible. I scared him off the ledge. The adult gulls circle, helpless.

My daughter tried to console me by telling me that I do not have a moral duty to ensure the gull learns to fly and it’s not my fault if it fails.

“His name is Huey,” I snapped.

6th July: Prodigal Son

HUEY IS BACK! He’s lording it over the other two by flying in circles over their head. Dewey and Louis stare straight ahead, pretending that they can’t see him.

7th July: Lift off

Dewey is airborne! He managed a short hop across the roof. This is amazing to watch.

8th July: Protected Habitat

Again, the terrace scrubbing. On my knees. Three hours. Not just bird shit but also stripped-clean bones and unidentifiable scraps that I try not to think about.

The fledglings clearly do not give a damn that it is my terrace. They don’t even back away from me anymore when I go outside. They just look at me like “Oh, it’s Batty Aunt Sylvia again. Auntie Sylvia, do you have any snacks?”

My landlord is not going to be pleased if my terrace becomes a protected gull habitat.

9th July: Even a nest as big as a roof can be too small

Huey no longer hangs out with the other two other than to fly over their heads.

Dewey flies from spot to spot while Louis hurriedly potters behind.

11th July: Empty Nest Syndrome

Huey has left. Dewey and Louis keep walking past my window. They look lonely.

16th July: The Departure

Home after a long weekend. I immediately check the roof. Dewey and Louis are alone and unsupervised. A horde of gulls circles to the west. I walk past the planter for the first time since April, our carefully negotiated boundaries ignored. Nothing. Dewey and Louis are unbothered and no one appears to defend them. Huey is nowhere to be seen.

The swarm of gulls grows and drifts west, circling the coastline.

The juveniles cry for food. One of the negligent parents finally returns. The two juveniles fly onto Nestling Tower, previously the domain of the adults only, their cries becoming louder.

I turn on music, drowning out the sound, trying not to feel heartless.

Then, there’s a shift in the sound. Dewey and Louis circle the roof, looking surprisingly confident in their flight. Then they both fly over the terrace, straight past my window and towards the coast.

The roof is empty.

Hundreds of gulls circle the coast in the evening sun.

Is that it? Was today always the day? Did they wait for me, for a final goodbye?

I scrub the terrace one last time, glad at least that this job is behind me. Of course I’m glad. I mean, I knew they were never going to stay.

I walk across the roof to the scrappy pile of twigs on the far side.

No one cares as I poke at the nest. My roof is gull-free.

The silence is deafening.

This was part two of the Three Months of a Gull-Infested Roof. This is a free series so feel free to share (and if someone shared it with you, feel free to sign up!)

Three Months of a Gull-Infested Roof

• Part 1: Feathered Siege
  The invasion begins.

• Part Two: Fluffy Occupation (you are here)
  Three chicks turn Sylvia’s life upside down.

Next:

• Part Three: The Last Gull Standing 
  Sylvia thought she knew how this story would end. She was wrong.

• Afterword: After the Gulls of Summer Have Gone
  Exclusive reflections and behind-the-scenes insights for sponsors.

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