'Swooping seagulls who steal your food need pity not hate - and I know why'

A family beach picnic serenaded by lapping waves and lilting gull cries was hardly the time or place for a half-term lesson on seabird ecology. My three grandchildren’s eyes began glazing over the moment I started lecturing them on why our most maligned birds should be loved not loathed.

Mention of the dreaded S-word had put me in a flap after the trio witnessed a holidaymaker being relieved of a doughnut by a demonic creature with evil eyes and razor-sharp beak – a seagull! “Gull, we call them gulls! Never, never seagulls!” I pontificated with the same zeal I had once reprimanded an American for having the temerity to say soccer rather than football.

Standing all schoolmasterly atop a rocky Norfolk breakwater, I explained how herring gulls with their silvery, ink-tipped wings were things of beauty but, sadly, now a Red List Species of Conservation Concern after a 70% UK population crash since the 1970s.

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Diminishing food resources because of landfill site closures and reductions in fish discards along with the scourge of bird flu is making survival tough for a creature that has become a pariah for its liking of fast-food scraps. As my afternoon sermon came to an end, all eyes turned to a smoky grey shape gliding elegantly above our heads.

“Gull!” The grandkids declared in unison, each waiting for approval at their correct bird identification. Time for another lecture. Pointing out the stiff wings and rotund body shape of the bird coasting leisurely over the shallows, I declared that rather than a gull we were watching a fulmar – the closest thing to an albatross patrolling British waters.

Mere mention of an albatross, the mighty wanderer of storm-lashed southern oceans and ancient rhymes, had them captivated. So close was the fulmar I could point out features shared with its legendary relation: tube-shaped nostrils to distil sea-water and the ability to projectile vomit foul-smelling stomach contents to deter predators. After all the sermonising, I didn’t have the temerity to admit that fulmar derives from “foul seagull” in Old Norse!