Baby .....

Seagull.  He looks pretty harmless but when they've made their nest on your roof terrace in Spain, it becomes a bit of problem.  We arrived on Friday night and never thought to look on the roof until the following evening.  We were surprised to see this lone little fellow to say the least but the accompanying amount of seagull poop covering the tiles, not to mention the smell of it baking merrily in the sun meant that we had to get some advice about removing him.  We called on our next door neighbours (who speak no English, not surprisingly!) but he got his ladder out and together we tried to see a nest that he may have fallen from but there was nothing.  The parent seagulls were screeching and dive bombing at this point so we had to give that up.  Apparently there's quite a colony about 100 yards away in an old unused villa next to the complex.  Fortunately our opposite neighbour Pilar came out.  She works in the tourist industry and has good English so we took her up to assess the problem.  Her daughter is a vet and so she said she would call her and come back later with the advice which she did.  We were told that we should catch the bird, put an elastic band around it's beak (chance would be a fine thing!) and then if we release it near to the colony it's parents would still find it.  Catching it proved more difficult and I had been nominated to do the deed.  My husband stood in the doorway (inside) with a broom ready to deflect any attacks but we picked dusk in the hopes that they would be a bit quieter.  Anyway, after a couple of attempts I managed to cover the baby with a small towel and gently pick it up and place it in a box.  It screeched blue murder and I was terrified the parents would come for me.  Anyway, we rushed it over to a sheltered area away from traffic and beat a hasty retreat.  Mission accomplished.  It took us the rest of the evening and another couple of hours of scrubbing with bleach solution to get rid of all the mess on the tiles and the iron grill but it's done.  I sincerely hope that the parents found it.  The little ones to make quite a noise so I'm hopeful.  In any case, we followed the advice of a vet.  If we had not been able to remove it we would have had to call a certain division of the local police as apparently  they are obliged to help you if it's on your property.  I had my doubts as to whether they would have been careful about setting the bird free of may have just dispensed with it so I'm glad we were able to try ourselves.