Rescuing Gordon the Gull

A terrified lady called us last week for bird control in Perth. She’d heard noises in the chimney the day before but hoped that they’d be gone by the next day. When she got home after work that day though, the noises had got really loud, awful thumps and bumps, so she called our emergency service out. When he got there, Andy had a good look at the problem from the outside and then decided that the best way to sort this out was to access the chimney from the covered up fireplace.

After some twists and turns, with his head stuck half way up the chimney, Andy found a large bird trapped in the flue. Holding it carefully he pulled it down and found, much to his surprise that it was a herring gull. The gull was surprised too, and bit him hard on his finger. It was a juvenile herring gull, fully feathered but with brown, mottled feathers rather than the white and grey colour of the adults. It must have lost its footing on the chimney pot and fallen in, but we’re not sure how.

We called him Gordon the Gull. He was dirty and exhausted after struggling for nearly 2 days to get himself free so we thought we’d better take him home to recover. We found a spare pen for him and the first thing he did was drink a lot water so he must have been dehydrated; he ate a lot too, especially sardines. For 5 days he was too weak to fly, though we took him out on to the grass each day to encourage him. Finally, on day 6, after a sardine supper and a final wash, he took off and flew away in the direction of the River Tay.

Our customer has asked us to install bird-proofing on the chimney pots so that no more birds can fall down. Some birds aren’t as lucky as Gordon and will die when they’re trapped in chimneys. This isn’t nice to think about, and you’ll get fly infestations from the dead bodies too. Bird proofing is a sensible precaution to take because it stops birds nesting in the chimneys as well. So, Good bye Gordon, and stay off those chimney pots!