‘The gull is an animal that reflects habits I see in humans’

The gull doesn’t enjoy good public relations. It’s feathers are dull monotones, it’s loud and aggressive and it has a cry that almost sounds as if it knows you’re annoyed and it’s mocking you.

You’ve probably had one dive-bomb you on the harbourside, steal your food on your lunch break in Castle Park or destroy your bin bags on collection day.

All animals though, even the gull, can offer us a little insight in to the world around us and within ourselves, if we take the time to stop and appreciate them for what they are.

I love dogs for their honesty, their loyalty and their inexplicable love for a tennis ball. I love cats because they treat us mean: they’re aloof, hard to read and proud but in those moments of softness, when they let us into their world, they make us feel appreciated.

Gulls are bold and brash chip thieves. Who could love that?

In the summer of 2018 a gull arrived at Bristol Animal Rescue Clinic after a concerned Bristolian found him in a bad way. After attempting treatment it was eventually apparent that the kindest outcome we could offer this creature was to end his pain and fear and euthanize him.

This particular bird had a tag on its leg. He was a local gull, GF17150, that was tagged, lived and eventually died in Bristol. But how long that eventuality took was amazing: when we ran the identification tag it came back with its age: spring of 1992.

This gull was 26 years old!

I couldn’t quite believe that one of these birds could easily outlive our beloved domesticated cats and dogs without anyone providing them a roof over their head, a warm bed and nice meals twice a day; no shelter from the wind and rain, the predators, the cars, the buses, the trains.

This plucky bird had survived them all. He’d been around from Major to May; he’d been in Bristol when Jeff Buckley graced the town in January 1995, saw the turn of the millennium and survived the Beast from the East.

What a bird.

He was born in 1992 and tagged by Peter Rock (Bristol’s very own urban gull expert). He had been sexually active in Bristol from 1996-1999. After this time he emigrated over 1500 miles from Bristol to Cabo De Gata, in Almeria, southern Spain.

Clearly, at some point, GF17150 (or as I like to call him, Geoff) missed home, missed the Bristol streets, the easy meals spilled all over Stokes Croft on a Sunday morning and returned here to see out his days.

Geoff left an impression on me and so I wanted to get to know his kind a little better. They’re a monogamous bunch: it takes them four years to reach sexual maturity but when they do they’re a one-gull kind of bird. They share parenting duties equally, incubating their eggs together, fighting off predators and competitors as a pair for a whole month. Then, the young and old gulls help raise the fledglings in a larger social set-up known as a club.

They’re brash and they’re bold and they strive to grow old. They make a mess of where they live and are prone to aggression. A totally cantankerous but sentimental animal, capable of devotion and destruction, the gull is an animal that reflects the finest, the fiercest and the filthiest habits that I see in humans.

RIP GF17150 (AKA Geoff). He really was a tough old bird.

Samuel Michael is a vet nurse working for the Bristol Animal Rescue Centre