17 nests and 190 eggs were removed from Highland Council depot to reduce mess of gulls in Nairn
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A gull egg clearance programme at a Highland Council depot by Nairn BID has been welcomed by its nearest neighbour.
Nairn County Football Club, who play in the Highland League at Station Park, prides itself in having one of the best playing surfaces in the country.
But a perennial problem during the nesting season is the pristine playing surface being covered by feathers and gull waste.
Club chairman Donald Matheson said: “Our volunteer groundsman Derek Steele, with the help of the committee and fans, do an amazing job.
“The pitch is regularly marked up by referees as one of the best playing surfaces in the league and it’s great for the players to have such a surface to play on and for fans to see.
“But it really has been frustrating every summer as all the preparatory work for the new season is
ongoing and the pitch is looking great, along come the gulls and they leave their mess and feathers everywhere.
“We’ve recently installed a new automatic watering system which helps keep the pitch clean and moves the gulls on. But in the past it’s been a massive task clearing the feathers from the playing surface.
“This year, however, the egg clearance programme at the depot has had a fantastic impact and the situation has massively improved.
“It’s just one task Derek does not have to worry about as he takes great pride in having the pitch presented in tip-top order. It took a bit of hammering during the past couple of years because we have had to use the pitch to train on because the all-weather pitch at Nairn Academy has been out of commission and there are no other training facilities in Nairn which are floodlit. That really is a long-term problem and needs to be addressed, not just for the football club but for teams in Nairn generally. We are crying out for facilities in Nairn, but nothing seems to be happening.”
Nairn County’s season stopped after just two games last season due to the pandemic and apart from a brief sojourn in the Scottish Cup they played no further competitive football, until the new season kicked off on Saturday.
Iona Gibson of Nairn Connects BID said: “The seagull reduction programme is now in its third successful year. In the first two years, over 300 nests and 900 eggs were removed. This year, a further 99 and 1060 have been added to those figures respectively, making this year one of the largest undertakings.
“Derek Ross, our local contractor from North East Pest Management, started the work on May 1 and made two follow-up visits, totalling 37 sites overall. Each year, the town is surveyed and different seagull hotspots are targeted so that noticeable differences can be made around the town – however, weather and seagull mating habits are difficult to predict.”
She added: “A total of 17 nests and 190 eggs were removed from the council depot during these visits. That accounts for 18 per cent of the total eggs and nests found across all the sites in the town, so I can understand why a great improvement has been seen at the Nairn County FC ground.”
READ: All the fun of the fair returns to Nairn after Covid call offs but Nairn Games cancelled again
