Beware, drone fliers, of Scotland's black-headed gulls. For they will tear your craft from Mother Nature's skies An innocent drone has crashed after being attacked by an aggressive Scottish black-headed gull. The remote-controlled craft, a DJI Matrice M200 quadcopter, was being flown over Stranraer Academy in Dumfries and Galloway when the avian terror struck without warning. Black Headed Gull Chroicocephalus Ridibundus Larus Click to …
> Calcium carbide sandwiches were the traditional offering. Must be illegal now.es were the traditional offering. Must be illegal now.
I've been told that soft brown sugar and live yeast mixed together is the thing to use against cockroaches. Apparently they can't fart so as the yeast ferments inside their gut they eventually burst. Their fellow cockroaches then feed on the remains and the yeast continues to do its work.
Hear tell recently of a pilot in a single seat glider who had a large eagle crash through the canopy. He was left with no canopy and 3 kilos of extremely pissed off eagle in his lap. This took him a little while to resolve. Bird and human both survived, somewhat chastised.
An excellent example of why I repack my reserve chute twice a year, even though I've never used it in anger... I was flying at Algodonales a couple of years back and flew away from the main ridge and hooked a thermal just as a hundred or so vultures decided to fly out from their roost under the ridge and join me. Fantastic experience - those birds are a couple of metres across the wings and they're much better fliers than me!
There is (or was) a subtitled version of the video floating around somewhere, but I couldn't locate it yesterday.
Agreed, it looks more like a tern to me. Not all seabirds with black heads are gulls. Also the black BACKED gull doesn’t usually have a black head as the name suggests. The bill is large, wickedly curved and yellow.
And of course this is Scotland where the wildlife can be, well Scottish. Though I well recall sitting outside our wee hotel near Fort William with a drink as the gloaming fell as a mother pine marten not only came for her feed of dogfood but brought her kits as well. Pine martens are gorgeous, their kits are absolutely gorgeous. Full of wee predator curiosity. That is some trust for a mother to bring her babies in front of a bunch of strangers even if the owners were there as well.
Never take chips to Linlithgow Loch because the gulls have allied with the swans. The gulls will swarm dive bomb you (Ju87 Stukas) while simultaneously the swans run at you with wings extended (Panzer tanks). I suspect the ducks may be informers too. They do communicate - if one bird spots chips then they alert the other species to the target.
OTOH, if you are stuck with a tourist you don't like then buy them a bag of chips and walk them around the palace, at a slight distance.
I was flying a rather large kite on the beach once, and a seagull (no doubt looking for a snack and not where they were going) flew right into my kite string.
They recovered nicely, with a bit of an "I meant to do that" look to see if any other of its ilk saw it, and flew on.
They like to slope soar on the beach, with a sea breeze, up against the dunes, as they scan for exposed chip bags and sandwiches...and sometimes the entire zipped up food carrier.
‘Mama’ drone used to deliver food to rare vulture
You’ve probably heard about cases where certain bird species will perceive a drone as a threat and attack it, right? Well in this case, a drone has been put to use to deliver food to a rare vulture chick in Israel. In fact, this drone has to replace one of the vulture’s parents – earning it the nickname of “Mama” drone.
On holiday in Norway a few years ago I visited Bergen harbour fish market.
Whilst perusing their wares, a seagull dive-bombed me, landing its payload of fishy sh*t straight down my right external auditory meatus. Strangely, it felt pleasantly warm!
So plug those lugs when you're in the company of excited seagulls!
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