Seagulls are beautiful birds, as I discovered at very close hand when a flock gathered to share my lunch a few years back at an outdoor seafood restaurant in the Moroccan resort of Essaouira (and I realise, having just checked the spelling, that this is one of very few words to contain all five vowels, plus a bonus ‘a’).

But, beautiul or not, gulls can be a dreadful nuisance when they choose to congregate in significant numbers around one’s property. This is at present the state of affairs with mine.

Dozens of the things wheel overhead throughout the day, which strikes me as odd, given that Oxford is almost as far from the sea as it is possible to get in Britain.

The noise I can put up with. Less tolerable, though, is the birds’ propensity for what I judge to be non-stop defecation. Curiously, the poo emitted appears not to fall vertically but, perhaps propelled by the wind, comes sideways on at the house, spattering all the windows.

While it is rather difficult to find a good side to all this, there is at least one bright spot — no pigeons.