working for the mob

getting mobbed, originally uploaded by Dru Marland.

There's been an increasing seagull presence in the neighbourhood this year. They circle Westbury Park, on the lookout for scraps, like those vans that rumble around our streets on the lookout for bits of unattended metal (the exhaust pipe off the Traveller, for instance. You tinkers!). The seagulls are top predators; when they move in on something, even the magpies, who have terrorised the neighbourhood for several years now, hang back and look wary.

The gulls have now established a colony on the roof of the old peoples' home, two doors down. And one of the gulls has taken to attacking people in the street as they pass by. And it has now started going for me when I go up on the roof. And since I'm not going to have my roof declared a no-go-zone by some bolshy bird, I have a big stick standing by the skylight. Gullzilla hasn't come close enough yet for me to hit it; it dives at high speed toweards me, then pulls up into a tight Immelman turn, and swoops around and repeats the attack, while making a great palaver.