WATCH: A tale of “nesting gulls and a farting field mouse”

Wednesday 31 July 2019

An exasperated Vale resident is complaining to the parish douzaine over the “nightly noise” made by seagulls nesting in a field next to Vale Junior School.

However the douzaine is at a dead end and its Junior Constable Bill Cohu said they cannot investigate the matter further unless the complainant reveals their identity to them and shares more information.

A video shared with Express by a neighbour, Min Henry, who has filmed the seagulls squawking day and night. The second half of the video was taken at 4am in the morning. 

According to the complainant, who has also contacted the media anonymously for fear of “having their windows put in by tree-hugging seagull lovers”, their sleep is being disrupted by the squawks of seagulls that have made nest in a field to the east of the school.

“The noise problem for me is that this unwelcome flock tend to regularly wake up at around 4:30am, even earlier when the light of a full moon coincides with bottle collection day, and start screeching away for the next three hours or so,” they wrote. 

“I live within a three hundred yard radius of this nightly cacophony and the non-stop noise at that early hour is horrendous."

According to the complainant, the gulls are set off by even the slightest of noises. 

“The noise they make at 9:30am is the same as it is at 4:30am, when apparently a farting field mouse is enough to set them off, perhaps a little less as they seem to fly off in small batches for their daily bread at Bordeaux during the day."

When Express went down to take a look yesterday morning, there were three seagulls in the field and a few circling overhead. 

Vale Constable Bill Cohu was unsure of what the parish could do next. 

“There’s not much we can do about seagulls,” he said. “If he or she were to get in touch with the douzaine we could maybe look into it more or discuss it with the site owner. At the moment there’s not much we can do and we can’t just go wandering around people’s property.

“If they come into the douzaine we would not give their name out – but for now I am not quite sure what we can do to help.”

Pictured top: The field that the seagulls are said to congregate in.