Seagul vs viper

A battle of wits and courage!

Once upon a time there was a humble mother seagull of two flightless chicks of which had made nest on the roof of a downtown victoria high rise office building. Life was swell and they had safe haven perched above the noisy downtown streets. What seemed like a picture perfect family setting of eating scraps of fish and discarded food whilst aimlessly dropping turds onto the roof deck and windows was soon to be disrupted with the arrival of a seagull's arch enemy - THE WINDOW VIPER

(Cue the music)
DUNT Dunt Duhhhhhhh!.

We arrived to the rooftop at approximately 8 am on a sunny mid week morning. Tired and already exhausted from the previous night's 1am fire alarm call. Back to bed by 4 am we were running on about 4 hours of sleep - tops. The evidence was clear as the entire roof service was virtually blanketed in white seagull poop, that we were not alone up here.. 

The second thing that hit us was the smell. Like we had stumbled upon some rotting fish carcass, only worse. As we further ventured to the farthest ends of the roof top we found our mother seagull and her young cowering in the corner, flightless and vulnerable. I'd never seen baby seagulls before and I can honestly say they are not going to make the world 100 cutes baby animals list any time soon. Mother was crying out at us in absolute hysteria and it was clear that we were NOT welcome here.

Fearlessly we ventured forth with our task of cleaning months of seagull poop, caked onto the high rise windows in such concentration - all I could think was "Do not put hands near eyes or mouth" for fear or e-coli  or another such bacterial infection would result. Standard procedures had little effect on the massive amounts of white scum and we had to resort to carbon steel scrapers, the only weapon that had any effect on what seemed like raw egg that had been sun dried onto the glass and coated with  rubber cement. But, as time would tell, that would be the least of our problems.

A nesting mother sea gull is a worthy foe to any intruder and she fearlessly defended her nest with the courage unseen by any window cleaners before. She'd attack from the front, the side, and the rear. The most effective play in her book was the "retreat and fly around the building, then surprise attack from behind" method. We were close to defeat when we rallied to the cause. One man would clean while the other defended  from the Alfred Hitchcock-esque death from above using our ten foot long water fed pole extension module. Minutes seemed like hours and each cry of the ferocious bird was another death threat as she swooped and whirled with all intention to maim the human intruders. Finally, when all glass was cleaned and we made our hasty retreat, she signalled to us that we may have won the battle but not the war, by promptly delivering her current bowel movement onto the glistening glass like a Jason Pollock painting.

Thankfully nobody was injured in the battle and that these acts of nature are beyond our control and all we can guarantee is that the pre existing mess was removed. I wish this mother Seagull and her young a fruitful life in Victoria harbour. I guess in a way we should be thankful to her and her family. Without her to defile the glass on a daily basis we might not have as much work on this particular building.

THANK YOU SEAGULLS! YOUR POOP PUTS FOOD ON OUR PLATE!