Urban gulls 'waking care home residents and dive-bombing kids'

Urban gulls' early morning calls are disturbing care home residents' sleep in Inverness, according to Highland Council.

The local authority said the birds also dive-bombed people, including children, in streets and snatched food from people's hands.

In a new report officials said there could be more than 700 gull nest sites across the city.

Councillors have been asked to approve a new management plan aimed at reducing the number of incidents through "prevention, public awareness, and lawful control measures".

Scotland's nature body, NatureScot, provided £20,000 to support the development of plans for Inverness and Nairn.

Officials said the gull management plan would recognise the challenges posed by gulls and the birds' protected status.

The report listed problems including:

• Reports of care home residents experiencing disturbed sleep due to early morning gull calls, particularly during the breeding season
• Primary schools stopping children from eating outdoors due to aggressive gull behaviour, and secondary school pupils being swooped on outside food shops
• Complaints from people about their neighbours feeding gulls and attracting large numbers of birds

The plan includes awareness campaigns to discourage people from feeding gulls and new public bins that are harder for the birds to pull rubbish from.

Other ideas include using kites, flags and audio deterrents to put gulls off from nesting on rooftops.

Last month, people were asked to report gull attacks in Inverness after 16 incidents during a weekend-long Easter egg hunt in the city.

Inverness Business Improvement District said the birds were seen repeatedly swooping at - and in some cases striking - members of the public, including children.

The organisation's Great Easter Egg Hunt was held in the city centre, and attracted dozens of families.

Inverness Bid asked people to report further incidents, external as part of work to identify problem "hotspots".